Power & Corruption
by Teal Thanatos
Summary: Ranma & Naruto Xover: Ranma's Fought Saffron, and now he has an oppurtunity to learn techniques he's never even dreamed of...but can he withstand the corruption of power?
1. Prologue

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Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi, Naruto belongs to name? I don't own either, I don't make this story with permission, I don't get a profit.

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Ranma swung, the hit blasted into his opponent and sent him reeling back before the winds surrounding them carried the enemy back into the air. It's minor wounds were already healing, his cursed powers healing the damage like viscous oil coming together. The pig tailed glared and ignored a wave of flames floated past him, carried by the tremendous tornado that had ripped the mountains top off.

**"PUNY LANDLING! I…" **Ranma tuned out the rest of the words, time was up, Akane had to be saved and there wasn't much to do now, he had the energy, but not the time to use it effectively against the godling he fought, and Ranma just didn't know a way to release, to use, it all at once… if he could just find a way, the battle would be over. But Saffron had more energy, and could use so much more of it at once.

Ranma blinked, that fireball had been too close, but it had brought an idea… Ryoga was down on the ground and the pigtailed boy grinned and bellowed to him to get up there. Ranma ducked another fireball, and leapt forward to Saffron, twirling the ice staff as he went, as he approached the martial artist unleashed a chestnut fist upon the godling, throwing rocks and other flying debris to blind and wound the enemy, a last use of the ancient chinese technique tossed a rock down at Ryogas umbrella. The hit shook it in Ryogas hand and the lost boy instinctively opened it to defend himself.

Ranma smirked in false confidence, the lost boy was lifted by the wicked winds and catapulted into the air, only the umbrella held the boy up, its surface area countering Ryoga's massive weight. Saffron launched another blast, his wounds gone, the godling paused to boast again and Ranma took the advantage to toss the doll at Ryoga who dropped the umbrella to catch it and plummeted to the ground near the tap. Saffron's eyes widened as the implications of that action hit the demi-god, the winged phoenix screamed in fury and the pigtailed martial artist quickly distracted him with a well aimed blow.

"Bakusei Tenketsu!" Ranma sneered; Ryoga had just broken the tap and was dousing the Akane doll in it as he spoke. Saffron would die; it was only a matter of time now. Ryoga bellowed his happiness and picked up the naked and barely conscious girl, before removing her from the open-air cavern. Ranma inwardly smiled as one less problem vanished into the cave wall.

"Landling. You've done what no other has. Be proud, for you, and your death will be remembered for evermore." Saffron's voice was cold and ice hard, the escape of the girl had angered him so much he had become ice calm, a dangerous thing for Ranma, who had needed the callous overuse of the godlings powers to continue drawing power from.

"I think not Saffron, it's only a matter of time before you die." The pigtailed man said confidently, his voice and eyes however spoke another story, the man would be cold, colder than ice until he was finished with the godlings corpse.

Saffron felt a little fear, but his own ice-cold murderous rage eliminated it quickly, but it had been enough for the nerimian prodigy to attack with the Yumisenken. A vacuum blade sheered off half of one of Saffrons wings, Saffron scowled and ripped the rest of it off, allowing the temporary drop in altitude before the wing regenerated in a burst of flame.

Ranma angled himself forward; he approached the godling, dodging the two fireballs and a wing that had come his way. The young man had an idea, it was untested, but it would guarantee death, for at least one of them. Ranma's ki swirled around first inside him, then outside as he forced his aura outwards. The Nerimaian reached Saffron and dug his fingers into the demi-gods shoulders as saffron howled in pain as ligaments and muscles tore underneath Ranma's hands.

"Die Saffron." Ranma whispered, a sudden paling of Saffron's face showed that although he had been unable to hear the whisper, he had read the mans lips. Ranma's ki surged down ranma's hands through his fingers and palms into Saffrons body where it, using an idea reminiscent to vacuum blades, cut through Saffrons dominant and far more powerful Chi like knife through butter. The Demi-God howled in pain and agony as he soul was damaged by the attack, Ranma too screamed as the attack bounced back and cut into his own Ki.

Desperately grabbing at something, anything to stop his own attack from falling out of control Ranma took the broken pieces of his own Ki and Saffron's Chi and melded them together as the martial artist absorbed them. The new energy was powerful, and it took a mere moment for Ranma to bend the malleable stuff around himself to protect his own Ki from the attack.

Ranma sneered into the pain filled eyes of Saffron and continued his attack when something flickered at the corner of his eye, down below them a large symbol made of what appeared to be small kanji, the symbol Ranma realized meant something, and it appeared to be powered by a similar mix of energies as what the martial artist had made with Saffron and his own Ki.

"Shit." Ranma muttered as precious seconds passed as he removed his embedded hands from Saffron's shoulders. The demi-gods lack of control had made skin heal right over Ranma's hands and the wounds healed again as he pulled his hands free. There! They were free, and Ranma kicked off Saffrons twitching pained and unfortunately still alive body, The pattern below had almost reached them, Ranma smirked as he passed outside the zone covered by the pattern.

Saffron glanced down and inwardly cursed, the boy was going to escape because he was being summoned. But it would only be temporary; the demi-god knew the boy lived in Japan, it would only be a matter of time to find him again. The godlings stomach lurched suddenly, something was… out of shape with the summoning circle, it was stretching out towards the boy…Saffrons eyes widened in joy, the fool had taken enough of Saffrons Chi that he too would be brought along to battle! If Saffrons enemy did not kill him, Saffron would have the time to get sufficiently clear from the boy to make sure he did not return!

Ranma scowled, the enemy was laughing at him. Glancing around the man noticed that the pattern had stretched and now covered Ranma again, the pigtailed looked around frantically, but there was nothing he could push off, and the wind was pushing him back towards saffron. Ranma cursed, he could accelerate towards saffron, but even then, he'd strike a blow at the same time as the pattern reached them. He made up his mind and angled his body for a little more wind resistance, he moved closer and closer, the whirlwind had been dying and he wasn't moving as fast as he could have earlier.

Ranma swung at Saffron, and the world went white.

* * *

Naruto glared at his enemy from his perch upon Gamabunta's head. Gaara had become visible above the giant one-armed Racoon he had become and was smirking at Naruto "Thankyou for keeping me entertained so far.." Gaara paused to widen his smile a little, "But I think its time to show you the full powers of the sand demon… and also stack the odds a little more in my favour."

With those words, the sand ninja's hands become a blur, Gumnabunta spoke, explaining about the insomnia of Gaara, but Naruto could barely hear him, why wasn't the giant toad attacking?

"SLEEP SUMMON!" Naruto's eyes widened, that technique was known in the leaf village, it forced the user to sleep for the length of the summon but it didn't require blood or a contract to summon the mythical beasts, ranging from Youma to Demi-Gods. Naruto started looking around almost frantically for the summon, but it hadn't shown itself when the giant sand demon started laughing.

**"Hahahahaha"** it chortled in what had to be the most annoying voice ever, **"I'm finally out!!!" **Naruto stared with wide eyes as the demon did a little victory dance **"Yahoooo!!!"** it cheered as it spotted Gamnabunta and Naruto. **"And here's someone I want to kill, Right-off!" **the sand demon chortled and suddenly flexed its stump **"FUUTON!"** Naruto gasped but Gamnabunta and Gamakichi didn't even blink.

"Get down fella!" Gamakichi ordered suddenly, Naruto quickly hunkered down on top of Gamnabunta as the giant toad king bellowed and jumped above a Renkuudan attack shot from Shusakuu. As they reached the high point in their flight Gamnabunta bellowed and released two massive water cannonballs down upon Shusaku who quickly countered them with five of his own attacks.

"THIS IS BAD OYABIN! THERE'S STILL ONE LEFT!" Naruto bellowed moments before they were hit, throwing them down into the forest, far too close to Sakura for Narutos liking. The orange clad boy dimly heard the sand demon cheering its victory and repeating itself inanely, Naruto scowled for a second before grinning as Gamnabunta walked out of the cloud of smoke that obscured them from Shusaku's view**. "That hurt! You pumped so much damned chakra into that ball you threw at me!!"** declared the toad king in an irritated voice, although, to Naruto's ear it was much louder and deeper than the boys own bellow.

Suddenly a bright light filled their eyes, and just off to the right of the two giant creatures appeared two figures, as the summoning light receded Shusaku chortled with glee and called out in what passed for a happy voice. **"Hey Hey Saffron! A bit slow getting here!"** the Sand demon chortled again but stopped mid laugh before appearing to look closer at the figures which were beginning to fall. **"Saffron?"** Naruto and Gamnabunta turned to look a little closer too, the second figure, who Naruto could only just make out, was dressed in red shirt with black pants… and he was also attacking the phoenix, Naruto didn't recognize him, but it appeared that he was going to kill the winged man.

"Comeon boss, lets get Shusaku while he's distracted." Naruto almost begged. Luckily Gamnabunta did here him and spoke **"For now rough up that medium kid! So the spell will break!" **

Naruto eyes bulged, "How?" he gasped out in shock, how the heck was he, a boy, meant to get over there? Not that if there was a way, he'd not be able to do it.. he'd get the job done, somehow.

**"We'll get close to that stupid badger and stop him in his tracks!"** Gamnabunta lowered himself slightly to prepare for a lunge, **"We'll do it when his guard is down!"**

Naruto's face twisted slightly, becoming more determined than ever. "I'm asking you how exactly are we going to do that!?"

**"I'm just a toad so, I don't have any fangs or claws to stop him- so using the Henge No Jutsu, I'll transform into something that does!**" Naruto grinned wildy as Gamnabunta continued, "I'm no good at transforming so! You be my will and do the 'In' for me, I'll lend you my Chakra, It'll be a Combo Henge!"

Naruto's face firmed into position as he felt the chakra enter him, what could he use, something with claws and fangs! "umm umm" then inspiration struck.

**"Here we go!"** bellowed Gamnabunta as they vanished into a cloud of smoke.

* * *

Ranma looked around for a second as the light receeded and noticed two things, two very, very, big things. A giant toad, and a giant racoon… not only were these things giant, they were completely out of his experience, the largest things Ranma had ever seen were the giant animals and Orochi at Ryuugenza. Shaking his head, he dismissed it and did his very best to ignore that the giant racoon was trying to speak to Saffron.

**"Hey Hey Saffron! A bit slow getting here!"**

**"Saffron?"**

Ranma punched Saffron downwards as hard as he could, there was no way he could stay afloat via using the non existent whirlwind which had floated around them mere moments ago, so he was forced to slow his fall by belting the crap out of Saffron… not that Ranma had anything against that. Saffron was coming around, enough that he was beginning to block a few blows from the young man, Ranma scowled and swung harder, breaking the demi-gods arm for what seemed like the umpteenth millionth time.

_'I've got to find a way to put him down permanently!'_ Ranma thought frantically, the man hadn't thought that Saffron's claims to godhood were true, but he was willing to admit Saffron's power to constantly heal himself was a little… god like. Unleashing a kick upon the godling Ranma angled after him in the fall until Saffron regained enough presence of mind to straighten his wings. Ranma impacted upon the godling almost immediately causing Ranma's feet to break several of Saffron's ribs. The golden winged phoenix gurgled out his pain to the uncaring world as Ranma placed his feet on the phoenix gods chest and pelvis.

_'Come on… quicker.. fall quicker dammit.' _Ranma thought as they fell down towards the treetops, Saffron blinked groggily but Ranma ignored it as they hit the treetops like a hammer going through a thin wooden table, Saffron's body suddenly slowed and stopped its downward fall as Ranma's previous aiming caused Saffron's landing, and consequent impaling upon a tree trunk. Ranma felt his legs strain as his own weight pushed down onto Saffron's body hard enough to break the spine and most of the bones in the phoenix kings cadaver. And he was dead too, the trunk of the tree had impaled him through the heart and by the time the corpse had stopped sliding down the centre trunk, it had nearly been ripped in half.

Ranma sighed as he broke his own fall with branches, not without its own consequences as the man felt his arms bruise heavily and several deep cuts appeared on said arms.

Suddenly something impacted from the side, hard, Ranma gasped for air as someone grabbed him and slowed his almost lethal fall to something much more acceptable.

* * *

Naruto leapt out of the cloud of smoke and savagely bit and grasped hold of the sand demons neck and arms with his fangs and hand like claws. The jutsu dissipated and Naruto reeled for a half second as the strange merging of Gamnabunta and boy ended.

"WAKE UP!" Naruto bellowed as he leapt from Gamnabuntas head onto the soft sand of Shusaku, as he sprinted up along the racoons muzzle when the sand suddenly sunk under his leading foot, Naruto stopped in surprise and barely heard Gamakichi's call to his father as sand leapt up to attack the orange clad boy, only to be stopped by Gamabuntas tongue.

"Don't lick me!" the semi-awake/semi-possessed Gaara howled as he forced the toads tongue away. "What kind of power does this boy have?" asked the sand ninja to the air around him as he forced back the possession enough to think and check out the situation, "Damn, this is bad! He and I should both be out of Chakra!"

Naruto meanwhile heard Gamnabunta curse as the giant toad was pushed back towards where Sasuke had first confronted Gaara and where Sakura was stuck to the tree. "Sakura-Chan!" Naruto whispered in horror, reaching deep inside of himself he begged of the imprisoned demon fox within him, _'I'm begging you… all I need is a little bit… enough so I can protect everyone…_ _give me YOUR CHAKRA!'_ Naruto gasped as the demon fox complied and the red Chakra swirled out the howling Naruto.

Gaara screamed at Naruto to die but was ignored as the blond haired boy jumped forward a challenge on his lips. "HERE I GO!!! YOU DUMB BADGER!!!" Gaara managed to summon enough sand to slow the fox empowered boy, but Naruto's eyes merely narrowed as he swore at him. "You BASTARD!" finished Naruto as he head-butted Gaara between the eyes. Gaara suddenly slumped a little, and their now bleeding foreheads rested against each other, both too weary to move after the devastating hit.

The sand demon began to dissolve into chunks of sand and then into smaller pieces as Gaaras disorientation returned Shusaku to powerlessness. Gaara and Naruto both regained enough sense of mind to land safely on two nearby treetops, the duo stood staring angrily at each other for nearly a minute before Naruto spoke to the backing of falling sand. "Like.. Even I'm… Empty after all this.." he paused to breath and spoke again as Gaara regarded him with no little fear. "…I'll reach my limits after one final blow to you…" Naruto tottered to his feet and Gaara did the same, "We're both alike, you and I… Lets make this the end of it!!!" he finished with a near bellow and simultaneously Gaara and Naruto leapt towards each other and dealt a single blow.

* * *

The person carrying Ranma set him down gingerly, which Ranma was more than thankful for, being a manly man and all was okay, but being treated like dog shit for it sucked ass. Suddenly the person whirled and sprinted around thirty feet before diving and catching someone else. Ranma pushed himself up and rested against the tree trunk, the person who caught him, a black clothed guy with the weirdest tattoo covering his left half of his face, was carrying a sand covered girl wearing a short dress much in the manner that Shampoo had. He carried her back to next to Ranma who managed to say thanks for the catch when a dog seemingly appeared out of nowhere, "Check Sakura…" he said to the dog before bounding off, presumably after another person, who would no doubt be falling from the sky in Ranma's opinion.

"Lemme look at her." Ranma said to the dog, more to let the dog know he was being friendly than of any belief that a dog could possibly ever talk back.

"No. Sit there, shuddup." Ranma blinked. Then he blinked again. That dog did talk to him… A sudden burst of flame above them caused Ranma to flinch and look up to Saffron's corpse as it was engulfed in a fireball, covering his face from falling charcoal the man noticed as the fire receded that there was an egg in its place, the egg subsequently shone with light and vanished.

Ranma could think of only one thing to say before he passed out, "Shit."

* * *

Naruto landed face down on the soft grass, for a few minutes the boy was unable to move at all, but he managed to turn his head at Gaara, who appeared to be in better condition and laying flat on his back. Naruto narrowed his eyes but found he couldn't move.. until he constricted himself and started edging towards the other boy like a slug or snail.

The sand ninja's eyes flickered, and he turned his head towards Naruto, only to find him edging towards him Gaara's eyes widened and he whispered to himself "..My existence won't be put out... It won't be put out!" Gaara had a sudden premonition, he couldn't stop Naruto now, he didn't have Chakra, nor could the sand ninja move. "Will I be saved?" the unloved boy questioned as he listened to Naruto exert himself to get closer.

"D…Don't come closer!" Gaara begged as Naruto approached, all the way crawling towards him with only his chin.

Naruto stopped and looked up at the sand ninja, Gaara was astonished to realize the boy was crying, '_why?'_ "I know what you must feel…" Naruto spoke, it was obviously trying for him, "..Being along… Being incomplete.. What your pain must be.. I understand that.." Gaara could do nothing but stare, why, for what purpose did he speak these words? They could not possibly be true. "But.." Gaara trembled at that word as fear flowed over him, "for the people that are precious to me, to be able to…" he stopped, and Gaara felt hope rise from within, perhaps he had fainted? But no, he was still staring the Sand Ninja, "The people that are precious to me… if you are hurting them…" he stopped again, and Gaara looked into those eyes, the eyes that spoke of death and held within a vertically slitted pupil. "And If you are trying to kill them.. I will stop you!" Naruto finished.

Gaara stuttered as he tried to speak, "what the…" he stopped as Naruto began moving towards him again but continued on with an edge of fear and hysteria in his voice "What? Until now for the sake of other people, you've.." but Gaara could fine no strength to speak more.

Naruto stopped again and looked at Gaara for a moment before speaking "Because they rescued me from the hell of being alone.. they acknowledged my existence, that's why they all are the most important…"

Gaara blinked and remembered "love" he whispered, "that's why this guy is so strong."

"That's enough Naruto." Said another voice, Gaara would have shaken his head to clear his vision but couldn't, so it took a moment to realize it was that Uchiha that had managed to hurt him… one of Narutos…loved ones. He was down on one knee and resting his hand on it as he spoke to the boy, "Sakura is all right now." He began in a soothing voice before turning slightly to regard Gaara, "This guy has run out of Chakra… Sakura has been saved from the sand."

Something just obscured Gaara's vision for a second, it was Temari and Kankuro, they were both looking much worse for wear, but Gaara could make out no permanent injuries. "that's enough… stop it." Gaara eked out in a quiet voice when he realized that Temari and Kankuro were about to continue the fighting.

They glanced back at him and he saw Kankuro's eyes widen in surprise at how hurt Gaara was.. "I understand." He said as the puppeteer lifted Gaara onto his shoulder, they left instantly and Gaara spent a moment to look back at Naruto who had allowed himself to fall unconscious with a peaceful expression on his face.

"Temari.. Kankuro.." Gaara said quietly, "I'm sorry.."

* * *

Authors Note: you may have noticed that I used Ki & Chi in this. There is a purpose behind this and it will be revealed later.


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One – Maybe not home, but a place to stay.

Important note, I twist Ki/chi(which means the same thing), into two different things, Ki in this story means Body/internal Energy, and Chi means Spirit/External energy. So a chakra person absorbs half of their energy from outside, and uses half of the inside energy to create Chakra. So don't use this idea without asking me, or at least crediting me.

* * *

Ranma wearily opened his eyes, as his vision came into focus he noticed he was in a hospital, the walls were bland white, sitting up the young man scowled a little as he noticed the pain he was still in, it wasn't much true, but still.. the occasions were he woke unhealed were uncommon.

"Hello?" Ranma's head spun to the voice, but he groaned as the sudden motion caused a sudden wave of disorientation. "Oh, let me look at that." The woman said, Ranma glanced at her, careful not to move his head too much, she was wearing a nurse uniform, kinda, so it was probably okay. "lay down." Demanded the nurse as she took held of Ranma's shoulders and lowered him to the bed. Ranma's cheeks flushed as he realized he was grateful for the help.

"You've got a concussion," Ranma snorted a little and the nurse giggled. "You do!" she exclaimed, "you've also got some broken ribs, nothing serious now," the young man blinked and looked up at her and the nurse nodded seriously, "and you'll also not want to use your hands, or your right arm for a few days.."

Ranma's face twisted in surprise and shock, he was wounded that badly? How long had he been out for? It should have been at least three days or so.. "How bad was I when I got here?" he asked finally, he hadn't felt like he was that hurt at all until he had fainted…

"I'm not sure, I'm sorry." The nurse went to the end of his bed and picked up a folder hanging there, "hmm, it appears that you don't have a name here."

Ranma glanced at her, interrupted from trying to look at his bandaged hands. "uh, Ranma Saotome of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts." The boy said unthinkingly as he tried to pry the bandages up to see his hand.

"Stop that." The nurse barked out suddenly, Ranma jumped and glared at the nurse. "You can see them later when we change the bandages Saotome-San." Ranma scowled and she ignored his prickly manner. "You'll only have to wait an hour, so don't worry." The nurse said snappishly as she bid him farewell and almost stalked out the door.

Ranma snorted, women! After checking the door was closed Ranma sat up again, albeit slowly in recognization of his earlier movement problems. Pulling his legs up under the covers Ranma realized he was only wearing his smallclothes, well at least that was better than nothing. As Ranma finished moving into a meditative pose he hunkered down and began to guide his ki through his body.

* * *

"His name is Ranma Saotome from an Anything Goes Martial Arts school…" the nurse trailed off as she realized that her irritation with the boy had stopped her from getting any more information out of him.

The committee looked among themselves, the half dozen people who stood when their was no Hokage were having a very bad day. "So, Koharu-san, have you heard of that school before?" asked an old woman idly as she fiddled with her robes and sash.

"…well…no." decided Koharu, "I gather you also haven't heard of it either if you are asking me Homura-san."

Homura shrugged lazily and the committee laughed politely, "No, and I'll wager noone else here has either." And indeed noone else did know. "So it brings to the question, of what we're going to do with him?"

Koharu sighed, wasn't it perfectly obvious? "I will speak to him, and we'll tender a recommendation to Jiraiya when we ask him to be Hokage this afternoon." Koharu clasped his hands and leant forward slightly, "no objections?"

The committee nodded and acted or sheeplike until Homura spoke, "I'll come with you if you don't mind." The old woman declared cheerfully, Koharu nodded in reply and the committee moved onto other topics, it really was a pity that they were all so… sheep-like… although, it did make his job as Orochimeru's agent so much easier.

* * *

"Oh my." Homura showed a little surprise, but quickly returned her face to its neutral expression, Koharu looked at her oddly but looked through the doors window anyway, his eyebrows rose considerably. The man, young man, probably around fifteen or so, well, if just his height was an indication, and his face was youthful, the boy, was glowing, a bright blue aura surrounded him and leant the impression that he was on fire.

Koharu had never been a ninja, but he had seen them many times, and he remembered the day the now Jounin Gai passed his Chuunin exams and opened the heavenly gates to combat Kakashi, this boy Ranma Saotome seemingly had the same ability. The two committee members peered in at the meditating boy, "The wounds gate? Or the life gate?" whispered Homura.

Koharu shrugged, he didn't know. "It doesn't matter, eh, look, he's removing his bandages.." the bandages had been on his hands, which had been torn up very badly, sometimes Koharu wished for more people of Tsusanades healing ability, but there hadn't been any nearby.

"Definitely the wound gate." Homura declared quietly, the wounds on the boys hand which the female committee member had seen before he had been bandaged were now almost completely gone, there was only a few people in the village who could boast near the same speed of healing, and only the fox tails boy could beat it.

"Should we interrupt him?" Koharu asked finally, the boy looked pretty much reposed there, it wasn't something Koharu was used to seeing, a person with the outward appearance of being at peace. Homura merely nodded and opened the door quietly, as they walked over Ranma's aura receded and vanished just as they sat down in some hand bedside seats.

"Uh… Hi?" Ranma said to the two people, they were both pretty old, but seemed to be in okay shape for people of their age. The old woman was wearing a white kimono covered by a black jacket and a white sash, whereas the man was wearing a black kimono covered by white jacket and a layer of cloth around his neck and shoulders., together it leant them quite an air of dignity that Cologne had never quite been able to achieve.

"Hello young man." Homura said with a smile, "This is Koharu-San, and I am Homura-San."

Ranma nodded, "I'm Ranma Saotome." Ranma grinned and bowed as much as he could from his cross-legged sitting position. "Pleased to meet you." Ranma found, to his surprise, that almost true at the moment, it was nice to meet someone who immediately gave him some base respect.

"Well, Saotome-san." Started Koharu and then paused, how was he going to put this without seeming rude?

"Ranma, please." Ranma said suddenly as he found those words uncomfortable. "Saotome-San has always been my father." And that was true too, although there had been a few people to call him Saotome-san, but most of those hadn't been too polite, or had left after mere minutes, and Ranma had a feeling this would take a while.

"of course, Ranma-san." Koharu said with a little relief, the young man was willing to be cooperative which would make this much easier. "I'm afraid this visit is quite, rude, we, the committee currently in charge of leaf village need some information about you."

Ranma blinked, they were after information, and while they did say they had to get it, they were doing so in quite a polite manner, which was… different. "Uh, sure, anything you want to know."

Homura smiled, the boy was quite polite, and for some strange reason he seemed surprised that they would be polite about asking for information. "Thankyou very much Ranma-san, all we need to know for now is some basic information, where your from, your age and some minor things like that, oh, and if your willing, why your here would be nice."

Koharu coughed a few times and Ranma gave him an odd look before replying, "sure, I'm from Nerima in Tokyo, I'm uh, seventeen and… how I got here's a kinda long story, are you sure you want to hear it?" Ranma shrugged, it was a long story, and while no doubt interesting for some, it was probably dumb and he didn't need to waste peoples time with it.

Homura smiled and nodded, "I'd love to, Ranma-san, after all its not every day you find someone who fell out of a sky next to a summon." Kohura was nodding too and Ranma felt a little welcome, they wanted to hear his story.

"Okay," Ranma began, "It all started in Nerima when….

* * *

"hehehe" Homura frowned, Jiraiya was still up to his old perverted tricks. Although, as a SenNin Jiraiya looked the part, at least when he wasn't being perverted, his long white hair, the antique style togs he wore and the ever present scroll of summoning that lay across his back combined to give him a look of seniority and power.. at least when he wasn't being silly.

"I see you still haven't given up on foolish things.. haven't you.." Koharu said after a moment, Jiraiya had been a student of his when he had tutored him in maths, the things he needed to know as a Chuunin..

"I'm just doing it once more…" Jiraiya said automatically, his teacher was always a pain in the butt, Jiraiya blinked and glanced behind him. "Homura Otchan, Koharu-Sensai Right?" Jiraiya said suspiciously, while giving them a drawn out sidelong look, "what business does a committee advisor have with me?" the SenNin asked, whatever the answer, it couldn't be good.

* * *

Ranma yawned, it had been nice talking to those people, and they had listened and made good questions about the story, it had been a bit painful at parts, Akane being kidnapped, the fact he was here on a place which had never heard of any country on earth… not good. The pigtailed man sighed and lay back on his bed, he wasn't sore anymore, but he was a little tired, he had to expend a fair bit of Ki to heal himself. The fight with saffron, and his desperate attack upon Saffron's energy had created some insidious side effects, as the demi-gods skin had healed right over Ranma's hands, the skin had ripped his own into shreds and replaced it, the doctors had noticed the skin wasn't his, and had removed it, but there had been a little left inside that they hadn't found. Ranma was good with his Ki, but even he had his limits, and while detecting a problem was within them, getting rid of the stuff wasn't quite as easily done..

"Saotome-san?"

The same nurse who had spoken to him earlier was at the door, Ranma smiled and spoke "Ranma, please." The nurse smiled back and entered the room and set down a tray of food, "I want to check your bandages first, before you eat." Ranma grumbled but pulled his hands out from under the sheets to comply, she scowled at him when she noticed they were quite unbandaged. "Ranma-San," she began firmly, "Didn't I ask you to wait for me to change the bandages?"

Ranma grumbled, "Yeah, but I had to check on them before I healed them and stuff, else I could have merged my skin into the bandages," Ranma had done that very thing the second time he had meditated to heal himself, the first time was an experiment, the martial artist had removed all the cloth covering his wounds to see them close, but the second time he had become so overconfident he hadn't cared, and so the inner layer of bandages on his thigh had become covered in skin, it had taken surgery to remove them and Ranma had never forgotten the humiliation of that. "and that really sucks when that happens…"

The nurse was looking very surprised as she ran her fingers along the places there had been cuts on merely three hours earlier when she had changed the bandages then, now, there was merely a half dozen pink lines where the wounds and scraps had closed. "wow, that's amazing, almost as fast as Uzumaki-San, although I don't believe Uzumaki-san needs to concentrate to use it."

Ranma looked up, that was an interesting titbit of information, he'd have to find this Uzumaki and see if he could learn the technique later.

"In any case, that was the worst of your injuries, well, the worst external ones, did this healing Jutsu heal your ribs as well?" the nurse after a moment, Ranma nodded and the nurse looked a little interested. "an interesting jutsu Ranma-San."

"Nah, not really, the damn thing won't work on anyone except the person who uses it.. and I don't know how to teach it," Ranma absently cursed his father, the young man did know how to teach it, or at least the brutal version of training which could kill someone.

'_he's not very good at lying…' _thought the nurse calmly, '_I don't think there's any need to tell the committee about that.. they'll see it the first time he tries.'_ In any case Ranma-san, should you ever find out how to teach it, please do tell me."

Ranma blinked, she had accepted it just like that? Oh well, better than telling her the truth he supposed. "Sure." This brought something else to mind, "umm, What's your name?" it was kind of rude asking, but…

"Oh my." She said embarrassedly, "Shizuno Mazaki, I'm so sorry, I completely forgot!" she placed both her hands on her cheeks in an effort to hide her blush. "Please call me Shizuno.."

Ranma nodded calmly, okay that was fine, she was using his first name, so it was okay, there was absolutely no romantic interest there. "Sure stuff Shizuno-san." Ranma looked around at the bare room. "Umm, there ain't much to do, and Koharu-san requested that I stay around for observation and stuff, but is it okay if I can go somewhere to practice or something?" Ranma looked a little embarrassed again, he had been slack, he really should have done some practice after the two committee members had left… but they had asked him to stay around to make sure he was okay.

"As long as it's not destructive, you can use the area in front of the hospital or the roof if you need some privacy, Ranma-san." Shizuno said after a moment, the boy's injuries did _seem_ to be gone. And it also didn't seem likely that he'd leave if he was asking permission now.

"Thanks Shizuno-san" Ranma literally bounced out of bed, unmindful that he was in his singlet and boxer shorts. "uhh, um, do you know where my clothes are Shizuno-san?"

* * *

"I'm not going to run away, That's a little excessive to have someone watch over me." Jiraiya declared reprovingly, Homura smiled at him benignly, and Koharu snorted, "however, there is one person I would like to accompany me.." Jiraiya grinned widely, "I found an interesting new egg."

Koharu smiled slightly, "Oh, before you go, there is one thing, the person who appeared with the Sand Ninja's summon," Koharu sighed a little, this was going to be a touchy subject, just for the fact that Jiraiya had sidestepped becoming the hokage. "He has not returned, and I doubt that he will. Do you have any advice on what we should do with him? I cannot condone just killing him out of hand, and the young man already knows how to open at least four of the heavenly gates."

Jiraiya narrowed his eyes at Koharu, and then glanced across to Homura, "I've got no idea." Jiraiya shrugged and looked completely unconcerned with the possibility that there was an unknown person who had the power to defeat at the very least a few chuunins.

Homura smiled, "Oh well, I think he might be okay to adopt into the village, temporarily at the very least, he is quite skilled in taijutsu, although according to him, he's never even heard of Chakra before." That caused Jiraiya to blink, and a smug smile rose on the old woman's face. "Only the matter of pride forces me to say that he would be defeated by our own village Chuunins. And If his story is mostly true, or more, even pride will be forced to bend to reality."

Koharu frowned, "Stop revving him up Homura-san, the sole lie the boy tried to tell us was pathetically obvious, and Ranma has a good heart, there will not be a single problem with him."

* * *

"He's pretty good..." Homura said quietly, she was observing Ranma through a window, he was practicing a style of some sort that involved not only a Kata, but keeping two rocks each the size of a fist up in the air, the tight training clothes which the hospital kept in plentiful supply didn't hurt either. "That involves precision, endurance, control and a little power, and that's pretty much everything bar Chakra."

Koharu frowned, "doesn't precision and control mean the same thing in fights?" they did right? They both meant accuracy..

"No, not at all, precision is the ability to hit the target," As she spoke Ranma's foot came out and kicked the rock, Homura winced in sympathy, it did look painful. "And control is how much power you use, he has to not only hit that rock in the right place, but he has to do it exactly hard enough so it lands when he's in a position to kick it again…" Koharu's eyes widened in admiration, the Kata did look complex, but that explanation lent meaning to it. "In any case Koharu, as you can see, he's using his hands to keep one rock airborne and feet for the other… the person who came up with this Kata would be quite interesting to meet."

Koharu yawned, "Come on, we need to talk to him." The elderly man said cheerfully as he walked outside without waiting, Homura grumbled at him as she followed the committee member.

"Good Afternoon Ranma-San."

Ranma missed the kick he was going for, and the rock hit the top of foot instead of impacting lightly on his shin, rolling down and being flicked up by his toes. "Kuso!" the young man swore and bounced around on one foot for a moment before ignoring the other rock as it impacted in the ground nearby. Ranma picked up both rocks and carried them over to under the tree where Koharu-San and Homura-San sat. "Good afternoon Koharu-San, Homura-San"

Homura smiled, and surprisingly Koharu smiled a little as well, Ranma hadn't pegged him to be a conversation or congenial person, Ranma didn't mind being wrong in this case though, it was nice to be proven wrong about some things.

"How is your day going Ranma-san?" Homura asked politely, "That Kata you were doing looked quite interesting." The committee woman wondered momentarily if she'd be able to coax him to teach it to someone, but dismissed it after a moment.

"Okay I guess, it's only been two hours, so not much has changed…" Ranma stopped and thought for a second, "I saw some people in black bouncing around over there, they kinda looked like ninja's or something."

Koharu chuckled, "We are a ninja village..." Homura chuckled wryly at that irony, one of the least ninja like men in the village, declaring the villages skills.

Ranma's eyes widened, a real ninja village? But.. what happened if they had crazy laws like amazons? "You don't have any weird laws do you? especially about losing fights… cause I ain't gonna marry anyone, and I don't want anyone to have to kill me by law if I beat them in a fight or something."

Koharu blinked and glanced at Homura, that was quite an odd question, "uh, not that I know of.." he said with another laugh, "If your up to it, I'd quite like to know where you came across a place with laws like that, but later, we have something to talk about first."

Ranma looked a little curious as Homura figuratively stepped in, "We'd like to know what your intending on doing, from what you told us earlier we're fairly certain that you are from a… different world, we always knew summons were from somewhere else."

Ranma sat there for a moment, "I want to get back to the Tendo's.. but.. I want to become stronger too, and I've already heard of a healing technique better than mine.." Ranma was wracking his mind, he did want to go back.. but.. there was so much here.

Homura spoke again, "From what you've told us, you don't have the basic training to do most of our techniques." She paused dramatically and folded her hands in front of her sorrowfully. As the woman suspected Ranma's face showed horror from this revelation. "However, it won't be too hard to teach you.. and there are summoning techniques known to the higher members of the village.."

Koharu grinned, Homura really was a wily woman. "Don't forget Ranma-san, it would take a few years to get to the point of being able to get access to the scrolls, we're only committee members, and you'd need to prove yourself to the next hokage and probably be at least a Chuunin first. It will take time."

Homura looked sharply at Koharu, was he trying to drive the boy away or something? "I have not found any other way for you to get home Ranma-San." She had looked a little, but there was nothing in the way of chakra to send a summon to where it came from.

Ranma looked between them, long experience with Cologne and the Tendo's made him aware she wanted him in the village, but it didn't appear to be to get his blood. "I suppose your right, and I guess I can always resign and leave if I don't like it here."

Koharu smiled cheerfully as he inwardly contemplated what had been achieved, the young man would not get too attached to the village, at least not very quickly, and that would let Orochimeru-sama check him out to see if he would be of use. "Excellent, Ranma-San." Homura looked a little odd as she smiled and congratulated Ranma as well.

"Ranma-San, we will acquire a teacher for you to learn about Chakra and see if you can use it." Homura had a sudden idea, this would help keep Ranma in the village for now. "I'll check you out of the hospital, unless of course the doctors object, and you may stay at my house tonight."

Ranma started a little, she must have a grandchild or daughter she wanted him to marry! "uh, I'd rather not impose Homura-san."

"Nonsense, since my son moved out the house has become quite empty with just myself there." Homura declared gruffly, her firm expression and those words effectively killed any resistance Ranma was willing to erect. "Besides Ranma-San, I make a mean ramen."

Ranma chuckled lightly, that was a convincing argument indeed, there wasn't a girl there, and there was good food. "Okay Homura-San, you win." Homura and Ranma both chuckled at that, and even Koharu gave a bit of a laugh.

* * *

Authors Note: yeah, I could have used the Energy/Heal Gate for Ranma, but I wanted him further along.


	3. Chapter Two

* * *

Chapter Two – Maybe not a real boy. (bit of a rewrite)

* * *

Gaara looked around him, it was dawn in the sand village, and the sun was rising above the canyon walls that surrounded the village, here and there light reflected off glass windows creating an effect Gaara found… pretty. The possessed Genin had in the past occasionally came to the tower, it was technically the kazekage's residence, but noone really minded, or at least objected, if he climbed up to the tallest point of the village before watching the sunrise creep over the sand covered buildings.

The Sand ninja rarely smiled, but these was one of those occasions, the sunlight leant a glimmering ethereal quality to the sand speckled buildings below him, the grains of glass always reflected well if you were at just the right distance during the right time of the day. It really was quite pretty.

Dawn had passed and the inhabitants of the hidden village of sand awoke and began to move around purposefully, like ants, Gaara frowned, no…. Not like ants. Like people. Naruto had taught him that much…

* * *

"Where's Gaara?" Temari asked as she seated herself on a bench, careful to arrange her legs just so, it wouldn't do for any perverts to get a look. "Come to think of it, he has been late a few times... since... " Her voice trailed off, it wasn't a pleasant thing to remember, their villages betrayal of the leaf and its foolish actions. And worse, the humiliation that followed…

"I am here." Gaara said calmly as he appeared in a miniature storm of sand. He eyed his two teammates a little, they were sitting just enough apart that he could… but he hadn't done this before.. he knew Kankuro was chasing a girl who lived a few blocks down from Gaara's residence….so they shouldn't get mad or anything… "Not too long to wait." Gaara said in what passed for cheerfulness. Temari and Kankuro froze, cheerful Gaara usually meant dead people. Gaara ignored his frozen teammates and dropped his Gourd on the ground, forgotten before it landed, before sitting down between them. "The people who are precious to me." The Sand Ninja whispered under his breath.

"Did you say something Gaara?"

* * *

The ceiling was made of brown planks of wood. That was kind of unusual, but for the house that Ranma had just woken in, it looked… right. The house was old; Ranma had figured that out before even stepping into the house on the previous evening. Homura-san had retired early, and Ranma had done the same not more than a few minutes later. That lead to his current situation, it was just before dawn and Ranma didn't know what to do. He could train, if he knew where he could do it without offending his host, he could get up and cook breakfast, but he didn't think that Homura-san would be up for a few hours yet and it would be a waste to make all of that mess just for him… and Ranma just wasn't sure as to what else he could do.

"Ranma-San." Said Homura softly from just beyond the door. Ranma sat up straight in bed, "I just realized that you had no clothes..." the old woman sounded far too cheerful for Ranma's liking, "So, I dug around this morning," talking of mornings, Ranma scratched his head as he tried to figure out why Homura-san was up so early. "And found you some clothes, I'll just leave them by the door for you."

Ranma's eyebrow rose as he called out through the door. "Thankyou Homura-san!" that was rather nice of her, he could have gotten away with wearing his old clothes for another day though... Well. Maybe not, decided Ranma as he critically looked at the very torn red shirt. Tossing the shirt and similarly torn pants on the bed Ranma slid the door open and peeked out to check to make sure the picture-laden hallway was clear. Nodding to himself Ranma stepped out off the cold wooden floor of his new room and onto the rug covering the center of the hall, as he picked up the clothes the young man checked them over, there was a black long sleeved shirt with a floral red pattern on it, Ranma particularly liked the thorny vines that connected the flowers together. The pants were simply black without a pattern to distract from the shirt, also in the pile was some small clothes and a black headband covered in white swirls.

As he donned the clothing and tied his hair back with its old cord Ranma glanced over at the mirror, the changes astounded him, his wounds from the fight with Saffron weren't healed anywhere near completely, and the ones that were, were colored lighter than the rest of the skin... That, combined with the loose clothing that shouted 'I'm a Bad-Ass!' Ranma looked quite different from merely a few days ago.. and he looked somehow more… mature. Akane would probably snort and insult him… Ranma's breath caught, he knew that Ryoga would have gotten her away safely, none of the phoenix people would have been able to stop him... But what was Akane doing now? Ryoga had not seen the end of the fight, although Genma and Shampoo may have… and if so… Ranma would be presumed dead. In all truth, thought Ranma, he was close enough to dead; he would not be able to return for years… if at all. Ranma had to face that possibility; this wasn't like the Nanban mirror episode... '_Although if Nabiki hadn't have broken it, they might have been able to easily rescue me.'_ Thought Ranma sourly.

"Ranma-San, breakfast is ready." Homura called out from the kitchen, one aspect of being a former ninja that Homura always enjoyed, was the speed that had come from a result of being a top specialist in that, and the use of fire ninjutsu meant that the old woman was able to prepare cooked meals in mere minutes. Her youngest son always had liked to watch her cook, and had even learnt a little about doing so from her, Homura wondered idly if Ranma would be swayed into learning. "Good morning Ranma-san."

"Good morning Homura-san" Ranma said cheerfully, he then paused and licked his lips in unashamed abandon as the table in front came into focus, it was laden well with enough food that not even a Saotome could eat all of. "Wow…" Ranma said with more than a touch of awe flowing in his voice, "You cooked this much food faster than it took the smell to wander up to the room."

Homura cackled for a moment as that came out, it seemed to her that she had quite a good chance at coaxing him to learn some of her techniques after all. "Thank you Ranma-Kun…" Homura shrugged to herself as she realized that Ranma had become that to her, "And after breakfast there's two hours for you to practice in" Ranma's eyes verily shone with fire as she mentioned that, Homura could tell she's have to replace the training machines regularly again. "Before you go to do some schooling with Ebisu-san." Ranma immediately opened his mouth in order to object, but Homura overrode him quickly, "The schooling will take a few hours every day, it will mostly be learning the basis for our techniques," Ranma shut his mouth quickly, "however there will be a little bit of maths, probably just revision to make sure you know how much food to pack every time you go on a mission and so on." Homura inwardly cheered as a much younger version of herself danced around inside while Ranma nodded and cheerfully accepted his days tasks without complaint.

* * *

"Good Morning" "Good Morning" Blah, Blah, Blah.. Koharu really hated the morning greeting time for the committee, it was a waste of time really… but he needed this done this morning, while Homura was out setting a teacher up for Ranma… it wouldn't do for the committee to be swayed by her words about the boy. Technically, this wasn't a committee meeting, which required all members to be present or accounted for, it was just a small gathering for midmorning tea, Homura had declined coming the day before, so for once, Koharu had chosen to turn up and exploit her absence.

"Good Morning Chimanu-San." Intoned Koharu politely, Chimanu-san like half of the committee members, was a former ninja and was so fastened in the past he wore the traditional ninja uniform under the committee robes, "I managed to convince Homura-san to meet Ebisu-kun near here, we could see Ebisu's testing of the boy from the balcony over there, in around ten minutes or so…" Chimanu would definitely panic when finding out someone not even from the village, was capable of that, without even using chakra… "He's stronger than Lee-kun I believe, I'm not even sure that Lee-kun could beat him by opening all the gates to be honest." Yes, that would do, the committee could not be too supportive of Homura and the boy… they could try ad get the boy back alive instead of sending a hunter-nin to kill him if Orochimeru wished to take him

"Is that so, Koharu-san." Chimanu said calmly, Koharu had been getting a little odd lately, in fact, it had started a few weeks before the attack by Orochimeru… it was probably just coincidence, the changes in the man hadn't gone away after the attack, that supported the coincidence theory, but in the last two days Koharu had been working pretty hard against the boy, not so hard to actually get rid of him, just hard enough to make the committee wary of the boy… an interesting stance to be sure. "So, you think he is that powerful?"

Koharu nodded a little too sharply, "Yes, and reckless to boot, yesterday he was doing some dangerous practice in the hospital grounds," the elderly man frowned, hoping he wasn't too obvious, "If he had lost control during the exercise, he could possibly have killed someone…"

Chimanu felt his eye twitch, he hadn't seen the exercise himself, but Homura had described it quite well, and it had been impressive indeed. "Well, I think we might need to keep a close eye on the boy.." Chimanu said in a sudden flash of inspiration, "Perhaps, an ANBU member or two to watch over him?" his eyes sparkled with fervent zeal, and Koharu sweat dropped a little, "No! Wait, we'll assign him to a team, his teammates can watch over him!"

Koharu had walked away mid speech.

Maharo smiled politely and joined Chimanu as they went to the balcony, "That doesn't sound like a bad idea Chimanu-san." Maharo was a bit of a lateral thinker, and had shunned the traditional clothing for a pair of comfortable and fashionable slacks and a white shirt covered by a black robe which was secured by a belt around his waist. "Placing the boy on a team that will both slow him down, and convince him to become more loyal to the village.. sheer genius, even I must admit that." Maharo rarely complimented the other committee members, intelligence was almost a bloodline within his family, his son had been above normal, and his grandson Shikamaru was a genius level boy.

"Thank you oh great and wise genius!" said Chimanu sarcastically, "your words do ring true for my great intellect." They both shared a friendly laugh, but a sudden thump down on the street below them recognized the beginning of Ebisu's testing. Looking around Chimanu realized that most of the comitee was watching the boy run, and run he did, very fast.

Maharo's eyes widened when he saw Ebisu jump out of a window, land on a balcony halfway down the building and then hit the ground running. The boy Ranma had simply jumped and ran, not bothering to slow his fall at all… "He's definitely stronger than Gai…" he murmured, next to him one of the other committee members nodded tersely. "While everyone's watching him, May I suggest that we attach him to a team that's not doing so well? Or is short a person." The seven people on the balcony all seemed to like that idea, and Maharo smiled.

* * *

"Good Morning Homura-Sama." Ranma looked curiously at the man in front of him, he was wearing a cliché ninja outfit with an added pair of sunglasses and a handkerchief on his head, the front of it was covered with what Ranma had recently learnt was the symbol of Leaf Villages Ninja's, a forehead protector with a stylized leaf set in the middle.

"And good morning to you Ebisu-San." Homura responded politely, "This is Ranma-San." Ranma waved his fingers at Ebisu, he didn't look much of twenty, maybe twenty-five was Ranma's guess. "Ranma's the student I asked you about, after seeing him practice this morning, I doubt you'll need to teach him much apart from Chakra, Ranma-San's skill in combat is at least Chuunin level in Taijutsu."

Ebisu's eyebrows rose, at least chuunin... and that level just based off observing the boy practice… "Excellent, I'm sure I'll have Ranma-Kun up to speed within a few days, Homura-San." Ranma looked a little odd about being called Ranma-kun… Ebisu mentally shrugged, "You don't mind if I do call you Ranma-Kun do you?"

Ranma shrugged easily, now that the guy had asked, it didn't seem like much of a problem, "Nah, no problem Ebisu-San."

Homura smiled at the both of them, "Good, I'll see you in a few hours then Ranma-kun."

Ebisu watched Ranma as the boy looked a little uncomfortable being left alone with a man he knew only the name of. "Ranma-Kun, we'll start off with a little practice to establish where you're at in both stealth and fighting, and then work on chakra and a few basic seals…" Ranma nodded, it seemed to make sense, "Good, now Ranma, to start off I can either chase you, or you can chase me, tag is one of the best ways to measure skills, especially when it gets going and people start being stealthy."

"I've had a lot of practice of being chased…" Ranma mentioned thoughtfully, Ebisu smirked and wondered why the boy had been chased… "And I'm not bad at catching people being sneaky… Although I'm not sure if Happosai was just letting me catch him.. I don't think so, as he usually got pretty beaten up whenever I did catch him. Damn Pervert." Ebisu's eyebrows rose, there would be a definite good story behind that.

"I think I'll chase you, I won't use any shadow techniques, and of course you can't yet." Ebisu declared smugly as he stretched, ready to chase the boy. Ranma smirked and jumped out the window of the building they were in, "WHAT?" Ebisu dashed to the window and saw Ranma hit the ground running, dashing around the corner and out of sight before the trainer could lift his jaw, "At least a Chuunin..heh." mumbled Ebisu.

Ranma hit the ground running, and left a foot deep crater behind where he landed, dashing forward he sprinted around the corner, and ducked into an empty garbage bin. Ebisu came into view and looked around before jumping off onto a nearby rooftop, Ranma popped his head up out of the bin and jumped in surprise as the trainer tapped the bin impatiently. _'He can sense aura's…' _ thought Ranma grumpily as he dashed off again, this time being careful to suppress his aura.

_'A lot more control than I thought someone who did not know of Chakra could have'_ chortled Ebisu as he fought to keep up with the very fleet-of-foot boy he was to train. The boy had suppressed his body's energy and so was hard to keep an eye on, and if he got out of sight, Ebisu would have to start using techniques to keep finding him… Powering a little Chakra into his legs the trainer sprinted forward suddenly, near catching Ranma again.

Ranma scowled, Ebisu was pretty good, and he was using some weird energy, it was quite similar to the stuff he had used when he had taken Saffrons energy and used it up… Shaking his head Ranma glanced over his shoulder to see Ebisu sprinting at nearly double his previous speed, deciding that he too could play the speed game Ranma rose his aura slightly, just outside of the visible range and doubled his own speed, leaving Ebisu in his dust.

As he dashed around a corner Ranma dived under a bench that two guys were sitting on, flattened his aura out and did his favorite Yamasenken move, the I Am Not Worthy To Notice move, it didn't have a name that Ranma knew of, but he had figured it out when Genma had suddenly seemed to vanish mid fight while teaching him the rest of the school to combat Ryuu Komon. Ebisu skidded around the same corner he froze, and Ranma grinned silently, the trainer looked around quietly and cursed for a second before pushing his hands together and muttering something.

"Nice Technique Ranma-Kun." Ebisu said to the air, or to the boy that was hiding under the bench. "But come out from under the bench." Ranma complied grumpily, but didn't bother to run, "That technique of yours is pretty effective, if I hadn't have spoken to you for a few minutes before this, I'd not have found you at all…" Ebisu's eyes narrowed and he stepped forward to glare. "But, I was under the impression you don't know anything about Chakra…"

Ranma blinked, he didn't know anything about Chakra.. maybe it was closer to Ki than Homura had led him to believe. "I don't…" Ranma quietly, "I do know a few Ki techniques, but Homura-san told me that they were all made of Body energy not Chakra…"

Ebisu hmm'd thoughtfully, "We're near the classroom, we'll go there and chat… come on." The teacher said before jumping up onto a nearby roof and dashing away, Ranma snorted and followed, keeping up easily.

"Lets See…" Ebisu murmured as he entered his own office, a medium sized office, with a library lining one wall, each pigeon whole of the wall was filled with a scroll, and each scroll held precious information. Glancing back he could see Ranma's face was literally aglow. _'Well... At least I know he's seen technique scrolls before..._' thought Ebisu with a grin. "Grab the first scroll on the right, on the top shelf."

Ranma immediately obeyed, and carried it reverently to the teacher; the pigtailed boy had been in a lot of monasteries and martial arts schools over the years, and by Kami-sama, he knew that when the scrolls got out, the real learning began. "Ebisu-sensai, what are we doing now?" asked Ranma, much more quietly and respectfully than before.

Ebisu smiled, this boy, unlike ungrateful Naruto, was ready to learn. "Chakra, we're doing Chakra." With that Ebisu took the scroll and opened it, laying it out on the wooden desk. The scroll looked fairly simple, and it was, simply a diagram and a few words, but it contained the base for nearly everything the hidden villages used in almost every task they set out to do.

"This is the entire basis of Chakra." Ebisu intoned, the diagram showed a stylized pair of lungs, one blue, and one red. "Chakra is the end result of the combination of Body and Spiritual energy, the end result is a malleable and powerful energy, Chakra." Ranma looked puzzled at the scroll.

"I can sense Ki... Homura-san tells me that its called Body energy around here, but... Where does the Spirit energy come from?" asked Ranma after a moment, his body produced the body energy, obviously, so where the heck did the spirit reside?

Ebisu sweatdropped, this was going to be a little harder than he thought… especially if any more of these left wing questions came flying out of nowhere. "Well… let me show you." Ebisu said as he grabbed another scroll, this one had arrows everywhere and little snippets of text written messily around. "The spirit energy is the energy that you can draw from.. Well, pretty much anywhere…" Ebisu paused as Ranma nodded his head a little in understanding, "so in short, you take in energy, store it within the spirit (at least, that's what the theorists think as the energy can't be sensed once someone absorbs it) and then convert it to chakra with aid of Body energy."

"Okay, I think I have heard about this before..." Ranma said slowly as he wracked his brain for information, "There was a temple in the Himalayas… they let me see a scroll that mentioned about the ability to combine natures excess energy and merge it with ki to make an extremely useful and more powerful third energy…" Ranma frowned tentatively, was he right? Or on a different track…

Ebisu nodded, "That's about it… although I've never heard of it as Natures energy… but come to think of it, it doesn't sound too far wrong."

Ranma grinned, he was getting closer! He'd have this chakra mastered in a week for sure. "Okay, so how do I get Spirit energy?" Ranma asked cheerfully, this would be easy.

Ebisu smirked, it was easy, but it sounded hard, at least to those who knew much about their own mind. "All you have to do is change the way you think. Your body will handle the gathering, you just have to get to it."

Ranma froze, change the way he thought? That was a damned hard thing to do… almost as hard as changing a habit…

Ebisu chortled heartily, "don't worry, it's not hard, despite what you think, all you have to do is call the energy from your head instead of your torso, it's a little harder to do both at once, and harder still to mix together the energies, but after a while you won't even notice the effort."

Ranma's eyes lit up, that explained why they called it Body and Spirit energy, "Okay, pulled the energy from my mind..." closing his eye, Ranma concentrated on ignoring his ki, it was hard but if he thought of it, it would rise for him. The pigtailed young man concentrated on all the memories of pulling energy he had ever done and analyzed as much as he could, Ki came from his body… So reach beyond the body to a different place. Concentrating hard the byo thought for a moment he had it, and then Ranma cursed and opened his eyes as he realized he had just summoned his ki instead of the spirit energy.

"Not bad Ranma-Kun." Ebisu complimented, and indeed it wasn't, the boy had managed to pull a little of the energy before his body energy overwhelmed it, that was far more than most people did in the first attempt.

"Eh? But I drew on my ki… Body energy, not spirit energy." Ranma said grumpily.

"You got spirit energy for a second, but it seems your body energy is extremely powerful… it's going to be a little harder than for most people." Ebisu theorized, the Jounin had never come across someone like Ranma before, he'd trained people who were behind and still had potential, sure, but Ranma had developed his bodies energy to a state far beyond any single Chuunin for sure, and even all bar one or two Jounin, and the only possible person who the trainer thought might approach the boy in power would be Rock Lee or his Sensei Gai. "Times up." Ebisu said suddenly

Ranma blinked, time was up? For what?

"Tomorrow we continue from today, here, at midday, Ranma-Kun." Said Ebisu pleasantly, "You can, of course, practice between now and then, but I won't hold it against you if you don't."

Ranma snorted. "Of course I'll practice Ebisu-sensei, I'll have this down before dinner, and I'll be showing you new techniques this time tomorrow!" he bragged happily, and in his own mind, Ranma really didn't have any doubts about that.

* * *

Homura yawned as she covered her mouth with a hand, quickly making sure no one had seen, the committee member returned her attention to the short walk home. As the walls of the ancient residence came into sight the elderly lady made out the distinctive sounds of someone training, smiling the old woman snuck inside the compound walls and moved around to a viewpoint with all the skills of a ghost.

Ranma was using one of the training dummies, it was a rotating one that changed where it was safe to hit as it spun, Ranma seemed to have memorized the spots and was hitting each one perfectly, it was barely a minute after Homura arrived that Ranma muttered something about how boring that dummy was and moved onto another set of equipment.

This set was basically a climbing set, with traps built in, Ranma bounced around in it without a problem, either blind luck or sheer skill allowing him to avoid every trap. Homura sighed, the boy was in a position that training alone was close too worthless, she would need to find a sparring partner for sure… someone close in speed and superior in strength would be best… or the reverse to build up strength…

Ranma picked up a boulder to move it out of the way before starting up a vigorous bouncy Kata.

_'Well, maybe not strength.' _Thought the elder woman wryly. "Come on Ranma-kun, time to go inside." She said finally, it was getting dark and that meant it was less safe to train.

"I'd rather not, Homura-san" Ranma mumbled as he approached her, "If I'm going be a ninja, I need to work on my night time fighting…" Ranma shrugged, "Sure, lots of people attacked me randomly, but most of the time that was during the day, and I never had to be concealed or stuff like that." He sighed, as if terribly burdened by this situation. Homura snorted, causing an indignant rebuttal from Ranma, "This stuff is so hard..." whined the boy.

Homura stopped and laughed outright, "Boy, your liking this more than you can admit!" Ranma looked shocked and rubbed the back of his head as he grinned sheepishly, "The thrill of learning new techniques and so on… ha! You like it hard, without a doubt." The woman finished with another snort of laughter.

Ranma shrugged, okay, so maybe he did like it…just a little bit though. "Yah, but I still need to train…" the dark sometimes reminded him of the pit… hopefully he wouldn't see any cats tonight… it was bad enough being under this sky where the stars were different and the people were different... and… maybe he was a little homesick for Nerima... already, it was only the second day from when he woke up.

"For half an hour Ranma-kun. Then its dinner and bed for you." Homura said firmly Ranma nodded cheerfully, "But first ... we need to get you a few Kunai… and some Shuriken, and there's a few other weapons for you to look over." So, together, the elderly woman and the young man entered the house.

* * *

Ranma mumbled to himself as he placed the equipment Homura had given him in a cupboard in his room, there was five Kunai, well made heavy long handled throwing knives with a ring at the end of the handle, all bar two had their own strap on sheathes to be concealed on his body. Two dozen shuriken, the pouch that held them an a kunai was made to be strapped on his right leg and finally a set of throwing daggers, they were similar to the kunai but almost completely lacked a handle, the belt also held the last Kunai, a small sheath at the small of his back. All in all, he had more weapons than ever before in his life… and somehow, that wasn't as scary as Ranma thought it would be.

* * *

Authors Note: Okay, I removed the scene with Jiraiya and Naruto fighitng Itachi, it wasn't really nessacary and was only there to show the timeline.

The Comitee members may or may not be used as a continuing plot device once Tsuanade returns to Konoha.


	4. Chapter Three

* * *

Power & Corruption 

Chapter Three – Training the good... the bad... and the fugly.

* * *

Ranma snuck sneakily towards his third target, the target twitched and jumped to the side, Ranma held his breath for a moment, but it seemed the target was unaware of his hiding spot, or of him for that matter. Pulling out four shuriken Ranma took an extra moment to tie the corners of the small net to the centre of each of the shuriken; he had hurt himself a little last night, doing something he now realized was kind of stupid. As he drew back to throw the target looked up and around, Ranma grinned and threw his shuriken perfectly.

The shuriken whizzed through the air, dragging the net behind them, as they impacted around the target Ranma took a running jump from the tree he had been hiding in, down to the grass covered ground where he tackled the target to the ground, although the net had rendered that unnecessary. Grinning to himself, the boy picked the net up, and tossed it, and the entrapped target, over his shoulder.

* * *

Homura smiled politely, it was a midmorning tea time, and the committee was meeting, once again. "I don't believe the committee has ever had this many meetings before..." said Maharo-san, Homura looked the man over, he was dressed neatly, unlike his descendants, and wore the most un-combative robes and clothing Homura had seen for weeks. They were a kimono that reached down below his ankles, they would be close to useless if he had to run, or even walk fast in the brown clothing. "But until Tsunade arrives, I guess we don't have much choice." Homura nodded, that was indeed true, "But anyway Homura-san, I've been wondering, we really do need to make some decisions about Saotome-san about now," Homura tensed suddenly, and Maharo raised his hands in a placating gesture, "Don't worry so much Homura-san. I've been wondering, and Chimanu brought up a wonderful Idea, and that was to add Ranma to a Genin team that had lost a member."

Homura's eye brow rose inquisitively, and Maharo smiled, he had gotten her Hook, Line, and sinker. "The team I'm thinking of is Ibiki Morino's new team," the original team leader had died during the attack on Konoha, and as soon as it was announced that the new Juunin who would take over the team was in fact Ibiki, of ANBU interrogation squad, one of his team and quit being a ninja permanently, and the other two girls had required a lot of convincing to stay. "Ranma won't know about Ibiki's reputation, and from what you have mentioned of him, I doubt he would be afraid if he did know."

Homura nodded, Ranma would likely snort and carry on without care "He will do well with Ibiki I believe, Ranma lacks tact or any kind of person to person relationship skills, although he has managed to hide it well." Maharo nodded, taking that information and doing whatever he did with it all. "I will request for Ibiki-kun to take him tomorrow."

Maharo grinned suddenly and shook his head. "Don't bother, I've already asked, and he'll do it." Homura frowned, but Maharo continued anyway, "It needed to be done sometime, and I've only tentatively asked him anyway, nothing definite, but he will be ready to take Ranma-kun the moment you say so."

"Thank you Maharo-san." Homura began pleasantly, "But Ranma won't be available for a few days," Homura continued with a smile, "Ebisu has arranged to finish Ranma's training in Chakra in a three day straight training session." Ebisu had been a little reluctant, but after telling him Ranma had already tried to make a new technique with Chakra he could barely control just the night before… the trainer's face had paled and he had changed his stance immediately.

Maharo's eyes widened, usually only problem students, of a level that not even Naruto Uzumaki had reached, were sent on training sessions… they were rough things and usually the child either got back with the mission a success, or they returned and quit being a ninja. "Have there been some problems with Ranma-kun?" asked the committee member warily, perhaps Koharu's words earlier hadn't been as out as he had thought.

"No, not really." Started Homura, "Ranma just tried to emulate one of his techniques, he uses it with Body Energy, but it backfired somewhat and was quite painful."

* * *

"Good Day Ranma-Kun." Called out Ebisu cheerfully, Ranma grinned and altered his jump mid air, it amazed Ebisu how the boy could do that without Chakra, a fair few ninja's could use the energy intensive method of slowing themselves down or changing direction mid air, but Ranma had told him it was all about changing the direction of his body when the teacher had asked during the first lesson.

"Good day Ebisu-sensei!" Ranma called out cheerfully, angling himself to catch a little more air resistance Ranma slowed down mid air and fell to the street below, he wasn't meant to start with Ebisu for another two hours yet.

Looking Ranma up and down Ebisu catalogued the changes since yesterday's lesson, Ranma now wore a belt that held a row of the short handled throwing kunai, a pouch down on his right leg which was no doubt full of shuriken and maybe a kunai or two, there was also a not too obvious sheath to hold another kunai and under Ranma's long sleeved shirt he could pick out two bracers on the boys arms… and hanging from his back was a… "I see you have a rabbit, Ranma-kun…" Ebisu said in a little surprise, Homura had told him she'd take care of testing Ranma's stealth capabilities and Ranma would have a rabbit if he hadn't finished it yet… but still... it was a bit of a shock.

"Actually Ebisu-Sensei, I had three!" cheered Ranma; he had gotten bored after finding the first rabbit and went out to catch two more. "Homura-san only said one, but I got bored so I got some more."

Ebisu nodded, so that was the test, sneak up and grab a rabbit… it wasn't really a good test either… not really. "Was that all you had to do? Ranma-kun?"

Ranma shook his head, "Nah, it had to be put in a certain place, I got that done already."

Ebisu frowned, "Homura-san didn't tell me what you had to do, Ranma-kun."

"Well..." Ranma grinned, "You'll see… later." The boy grinned, he had placed the rabbit in Ebisu's office like he had been told to, there had been two other ninja there too, but they hadn't been a problem to avoid, mostly due to the fact they were having a game of cards. Ranma had initially been a little hesitant about using the forbidden schools, but he figured that this was one of the times where he could use parts of it without problem… besides, from what Homura had told him, the Hyuuga clan used a similar thing as the Yamasenken… and entire clan of people who had the ability to cause great damage by light touches… "Anyway Ebisu-Sensei, Homura-san said that we were going to do some sort of special training?"

Ebisu's eyes lit up "yes Yes YES!" WE are going on a training trip, for around three days…" the teacher declared in a most Gai'ish fashion. "And I heard this today, you'll be getting a new team as soon as we're done to begin going on your very own missions!" Ebisu posed as if this was a great thing.

Ranma frowned and tugged at his black shirt nervously, "uh, your sure that their not going to like slow me down or hinder my being able to learn stuff?" he asked a bit curiously.

Ebisu frowned, "Of course they will slow you down, but your going to be slowing them down too… the idea of teams is that you slow each other down a bit, but as a team you can do things no single person can do!" the teacher sighed, hoping that he didn't have another loner on his hands.

Ranma thought about that, Ryoga had taken Akane away in the last battle… that was teamwork wasn't it? And then when he had fought Kirrin it had taken everyone's help to get there…even that perverted lecher had helped out a bit. "Yeah, I guess your right." Ranma declared finally, "I never really thought of it as teamwork though, we'd always group up and head out together, rescue Akane and it'd all fall apart on the way home."

Ebisu smiled in bewilderment, rescue Akane? How many times had Akane needed rescuing? "But you managed to get the work done, as a group right?" the teacher pushed, already knowing the answer, Ranma nodded and Ebisu smiled again in triumph. "A group is only another word for a team, and so you've done teamwork before... this is just going to be a little more teamwork than you've had experience with, you'll learn to fight with each other and against each other, and most importantly... to support each other when you need to." Ebisu smiled, Ranma had gotten the message clear, and the trainer's doubts about the boy's ability thinned and vanished like wisps of fog in the morning sun.

"Thanks Ebisu-sensei." Ranma said quietly, "I probably would have screwed up and said something to my teammates about slowing me down or something similar if you hadn't have told me that stuff." The pigtailed man shrugged his shoulders; he would have screwed up too, especially if the team had girls in it. He would have to take a lot of care in making sure he didn't alienate his team.

"Anyway, Ranma-Kun, before we leave for our training trip, we've got to get ready." Ranma nodded as Ebisu continued, "We'll be out for three days, but pack for five in case we need more time, or I find some extra techniques for you to learn." Ranma nodded again, and Ebisu was silently thankful he wasn't taking notes like Lee had. "You'll only need two pairs of clothes, if you can't bear to wear em, wash em."

"Yeah, whatever." Mumbled Ranma, as if he hadn't stunk so badly before that he had scared a fox away. "I'll be there; at least I won't have to chase down dinner on this trip." Ranma finally decided that was a definite plus, and besides, Ebisu didn't look to be able to eat even half of what Genma used to.

"None of that Attitude boy!" growled Ebisu as he reinforced his words with a slap to the back of Ranma's head, "You've got ten minutes to get ready and meet me at the gate! GO!" Ebisu immediately vanished into thin air, off to his own office and Ranma sprinted to home.

"Why is there two Chuunin outside of my office?"

"Why is there a rabbit sitting on my desk?"

"Ranma… Your training trip SHALL BE FILLED WITH PAIN!"

* * *

Ranma packed his bags quickly, in went two sets of clothing, dashing out of his room he saw Homura, "Hey hey Homura-san, I'm off for a training trip.."

Homura smiled, "Yes, I know Ranma-kun." Ranma looked suddenly crestfallen in not being able to spread the word himself, "I've made a pack of five days worth of food for you, you should check it over before packing it however…" Homura smile faltered a little, the house was going to be empty again... even if it was only for a few days.

As if reading her mind Ranma spoke cheerfully as he sorted through the food on table, "Don't worry Homura... I'll be back in a few days." Homura smiled at that, he did mean well.

Quickly running through the food Ranma wrapped it all up and placed it safely in his pack on top of the clothes and to the side, returning back to the armory Ranma took another thirty shuriken and wrapped them quickly up in a square of cloth, as he checked all his own equipment, determined to make that a habit as soon as possible, Ranma grabbed another three normal Kunai and a half dozen throwing kunai as well. As he wrapped up the last of the replacement weapons Ranma paused and thought about what he was doing now, he was about to take another step forward to becoming a paid killer… Ranma had killed before, true, but when he had been on the road with his father, it was kill or be killed… and he hadn't ever forgotten the faces of those six people.

But what he was embarking out to do, was on a whole different level, he'd be killing not for protection of his life, and possibly not even to protect others… but just because he had been ordered to do so. His hand shivered a little, but there really wasn't much choice… do this, or be almost certainly trapped for ever after… if he did go ahead with this, there would be others with the same problems.. Others who could help. Ranma stood, his mind made up, as he placed his new filled pack on his back he walked out of the room slowly, "See you in three days Homura-san." Ranma said calmly in the lounge room.

Homura caught onto his mood quickly, and uttered a few calming words. "People change Ranma-kun, but how much they change is up to them… I have faith that you'll not get carried away."

Ranma smiled weakly and nodded. "Thank you." He said simply before moving out the door and to his meeting with Ebisu.

* * *

Gaara watched Temari engage the enemy ninja impassively, Kankuro was finishing off his opponent and Gaara smiled as the deathblow fell. "Kankuro, retrieve the scroll." Ordered Gaara, Kankuro opened his mouth to reply, but thought better of it and immediately sent his puppet onwards. Gaara frowned and stepped forward as Temari's opponent took the upper hand, the distraction of Gaara however made that short lived as Temari swung and a cut of air decapitated the hired thug who had identified himself as The Great Kamajii.

Gaara nodded to Temari as she turned around and they continued into the bandit's fort, ahead Gaara spotted Kankuro hiding behind a tapestry, in front of the tapestry stood the doll in combat with three bandits, one of the bandits- a man dressed all in black and probably a former ninja- spotted Kankuro and leapt forward to the kill, only to be intercepted by a spike of sand through the chest. The battle stopped immediately, Kankuro took the opportunity to kill the other two men quickly.

Stepping past the carnage Gaara entered the main room of the cave fort and came face to face with the leader of the bandits, a former Chuunin. Ignoring the dangers the man might possess the sand ninja reached out and took the ornate scroll from the ninja's slack hands. The bandit's eyes gained focus, and he looked at Gaara, his eyes widened with fear and Gaara smiled cruelly in response. "Your men could have hurt _my_ people." Gaara whispered, just loud enough for the former ninja to hear. The ninja had wet himself and Gaara's smile turned into a sneer of disgust. "Desert tomb." The sand ninja whispered, sand flowed out from under the wooden chair the man had wet himself in, and from the gourd on Gaara's back.

"Please…no… don't." cried the man so quietly Gaara could barely hear it. Gaara's sneer morphed to a scowl. "You _could_ have hurt _my_ people." He whispered again as the sand raised over the mans face. Gaara stood and walked away, not even bothering to give the bandit leader a quick death.

* * *

"Hello Ranma-kun." Ebisu's voice was filled with a predatory smile. "How nice to see you…"

Ranma blinked, then looked around, aha! Ebisu was holding the rabbit! "Hey hey Ebisu-Sensei, nice to see you too." Said Ranma all too cheerfully, "Did you like your rabbit?" asked the boy tactlessly

Ebisu's eyes twitched, that boy was mocking him! "Why yes Ranma… in fact, I've decided that we'll keep it." Yes.. This plan would go out to perfection.

"Sweet." Grinned Ranma at the rabbit. "At least if we want some fresh meat we won't have to chase it down… me and pops used to do this occasionally." Ranma said with the best poker face he had ever managed in his entire life, he hadn't done this before of course, that was incredibly cruel to the animal after all.

Ebisu stared at Ranma for a second then dismissed the idea that he could possibly be serious. "Good, you're taking care of it, and if it shits in your backpack like it did my desk with the important papers to the Hokage… well, too bad."

Ranma blinked, important documents? Uhoh. "umm, Homura-san told me to put it there?" Ranma tried in a pitiful attempt to save himself from a fate nearly as bad as a fianc

Ebisu's left eye twitched, "rule of ninja! Don't try to sidestep the blame!" _ha! That'll get him for sure_ thought Ebisu triumphantly.

Ranma blinked, okay, he could do that. "Okay, I put the rabbit on your table, so what are you going to do about it?" Ranma asked curiously, it could not be anything as bad as the time he admitted to taking the last ration of food from Genma.

"ummm." Ebisu was stumped, he wasn't actually meant to admit it, or to challenge him over it.. "aha! Training will be extra hardcore!"

Ranma frowned, "You mean like Hardcore wrestling? I don't know… the people who do that are kind of fake and stuff…"

"No! not like wrestling! Like Life or Death training! You'll die or pass!" Ebisu bellowed in a screaming fit that was disturbingly similar to Soun Tendo's Demon Head technique.

Ranma yawned, he had heard that before, the training to fall down a cliff, the training to swim, the training to catch trains, the… the.. yeah, all that boring stuff. "yeah yeah, so am I cooking the rabbit or are you?"

Ebisu cuddled the rabbit protectively, "don't worry mister rabbit… we don't let that big bad mean man hurt you my prrrrecccciousss." Whispered the sensei quietly to the rabbit.

Ranma twitched, Ebisu was mad… and probably a closet pervert too. "Come on already, lets go… sooner we go, sooner we can cook the rabbit." Ranma grumbled as he started walking out the gate.

Ebisu growled and caught up to take the lead in seconds.

* * *

It stung… no, it hurt… his arms hurt like the time he had been tortured by the Akatsuki. The man moaned and groaned in agony, "Ar.. My..Arm!" he was sitting up in bed, unable to use his arms to do anything, from wiping the drool off his own face to wiping his ass when he needed to go.

"Orochimeru-sama, the medicine! Quickly!" said the ninja who was taking care of him currently.

Orochimeru laughed pathetically and killed the man. Yes, that did feel a little better.

Kabuto opened the door and stepped into Orochimeru's quarters, there was blood everywhere from the ninja who had been assigned to take care of their master. "Please take the medicine immediately…" Kabuto said coolly, he was almost the only man who could get away with speaking like that to Orochimeru. "Ahh, I have to clean the room the moment I get back?" the former spy asked himself.

Orochimeru scowled and licked his lips clean of drool before facing Kabuto, "…That kind of crappy medicine, Don't need it." The snakish man declared sullenly, he needed Tsuanade, after she healed him, it would all be alright.

"I mixed the medicine myself…" grumbled Kabuto, "It make you feel at least a little better." Finished the sound nin as he pushed up his glasses on his face.

"arr" murmured Orochimeru as Kabuto approached slowly, "… The burning pain in this arm…. I never expected it to be this much." They had experimented on that arm, in an attempt to fix it, but had failed miserably and paid with their lives for it.

"Sarutobi… The third hokage master." Murmured Kabuto snidely, "the wound comes from his final curse… No wonder its painful." And it didn't help that the ninja medic's had tried to fix the arm without kabuto being around.

"No need for further explanations…" growled Orochimeru in a most un-snake-like fashion. "By the way.. The woman.. did you find her?" asked the bed laden person with more than a little hint of desperation in his voice.

"…yes." Kabuto said finally, "… it seems that she's at a place called Tankzaku-gai." _Why wouldn't orochimeru trust him enough to try to repair just one of the arms?_

"….Tanzaku-Gai…." Repeated Orochimeru to himself, "…….. is that so.."

Kabuto stayed silent for a moment, unsure if he should speak or not, "However,, it won't be easy to capture her…"

Orochimeru snorted, "huh.. the best cure is always the hardest to find… right?" said Orochimeru mockingly, Kabuto had said the same thing to the snake man merely days before.

* * *

"What is that burn on your hand Ranma-kun?" asked Ebisu curiously, the burn he was talking of was along Ranma's right hand and vanished up his sleeve… was this the training accident Homura mentioned?

"uh.. training accident." Muttered Ranma all to quietly.. he had thought that Chakra would work the same as ki.. but it hadn't, when he had put it in his arms to attempt the chestnut fist, his arm had slowed incredibly… and his hand got pretty burnt from being in the fire too long.

"A training accident? You must tell me Ranma." Said Ebisu with an evil smile, this would teach him to be mean to mister rabbit! "after all, Ranma-kun.. if you don't tell me, I won't be able to teach you how to avoid it or similar things in future.."

Ranma scowled, this was horrible.. and it wasn't like they were doing anything but walking, it had only been half an hour of that. "Well.." _'I may as well tell him'_ "I was trying to replicate one of my techniques with Chakra right?" Ranma begun, Ebisu nodded, that wasn't out of place. "and well, this technique, the chestnut fist, it makes you able to unleash hundreds of punches in a second…" Ebisu looked impressed with that, and it was, there was no ninja who could do that sort of thing. "To do it you need to pump a whole lot of ki, I mean, body energy into the arm or leg you do it with and then it enhances your muscles and tendons so you can do the technique." Ebisu frowned, he could understand that.. kind of, it just wouldn't work with Chakra. "So, I tried to do it with Chakra… and it slowed down my arm so much I got burnt when I started the Katchuu Tenshin Amagauriken…"

Ebisu snickered, that was one of the most lame-brained things he had heard of. "Ranma… Chakra doesn't really do anything to the body until it's outside of your body." The elite trainer stopped and looked around, they were in a clearing and were far enough away from the village for now. "We'll stop here and I'll show you." Tossing his backpack down carefully and staking the rabbit's collar to the ground, Ebisu motioned Ranma to follow him.

As they approached a tree Ebisu lashed out and struck the wood with little effect, a mere handprint from where the bark had been ripped off. "That's without chakra at all.." Ebisu started before his arm glowed lightly with chakra. He then punched the tree in slow motion, this did even less damage than before. "The chakra takes space in my arm, so it slows movement and weakens power in my punches… you need to use the minimal chakra possible… so when using chakra, you put it in your fist, and emit it from your body like this." Ebisu showed his hand glowing, the rest of the arm was dull and lacking chakra, he drew his fist back slowly for a large punch and Ranma's eyes widened as he punched the tree causing a twelve inch wide-fist deep crater. "you saw what I did then?" asked Ebisu calmly.

Ranma nodded. "Instead of using the muscles to throw the punch, you used the chakra to do it.. the chakra controlled your fist and your body just followed along.." the method, Ranma had to admit, was efficient.. it would use less chakra than he used ki.. but it had it's disadvantages, the chakra dispersed after being used, Ranma could keep on punching with the chestnut fist for near half a minute before being forced to slow back to normal speeds… but the chakra version was much more powerful when it connected… and the energy expended if it missed wasn't much. A bit of a tossup on which to use. "It's good.." Ranma finally admitted grudgingly, "But as you emit chakra through those points you weaken the end punch… that's not really good."

Ebisu smiled, that was a good tactical point there, "ah!, but you can convert more energy to chakra and push it into your fist as a trade off, lose a little speed for a lot more power."

Ranma nodded, that was an okay tradeoff, if he had been able to do that to Ryoga it would have been much easier to defeat him- being able to dodge all the hits coming his way, while being able to deal damage equal to the human tank…it was better than okay. "I understand that, is it the same basic rule for everything?" Ranma asked, it was important to find that one out.

"Well, almost." Ebisu started, "if you have enough chakra, you can emit it all, cover your body with it and then use it like that.. but while you can be fast and powerful with it, every step or movement leeches chakra away." The elite trainer shrugged, there were a few people who could get away with doing that, the fox… Naruto, could do it.. and Jiraiya had been able to manage it for a few short moments. "but, onto more practical information, walking on any surface bar liquid requires a certain amount of chakra in your feet… we'll start off doing that, then you'll walk on water on that river over there.. and finally we'll do a few ninjutsu… like the replacement technique."

Ranma grinned, he'd do all that in one day for sure.

* * *

Four days later.

* * *

A little wiser Ranma looked at the village, it was a welcome sight which he hadn't managed to see before, but it screamed to him one word. "Home." The boy murmured, he couldn't wait to get back to the house and have a nice long sleep, and a good meal.. and.. some peace and quiet. The last four days had been hellish, Ranma had ran, jumped, bouncer, beaten trees, walked on water, practiced enough to even make his arms sore… and then came the techniques, when he was tired enough he was losing control of his own ki, let alone merging it to make Chakra and then using the chakra.

Ebisu grinned, he was far more worn out than he could have possibly anticipated, but it was worth it… Ranma had taken to Chakra techniques like a fish to water, despite the boy's own disgust with the level he had achieved, Ebisu knew that only the Uchiha or Hyuuga clans could outlearn the boy as a group… and even some of those vaunted families would learn slower. Ranma and Ebisu both wore torn clothing, they had sparred at one point and Ranma had literally fought Ebisu to a standstill while they both were using taijutsu.. in Genjutsu Ranma had been almost ridiculously easy to fool at first until Ebisu had tried to tamper with Ranma's emotions.. the genjutsu had seemingly instantly collapsed at that point and Ranma had been hopping mad… he hadn't fallen for a genjutsu since which was quite admirable.

Ranma grinned back at Ebisu, they had gotten pretty friendly over the four days… they both called each other by their first names now, Ebisu had proved to be equal to Ranma in combat, which Ranma was quite happy with, it meant that at the minimum, he had one sparring partner. Unfortunately Ebisu was far out of Ranma's league once they had started in on techniques, especially ninjutsu, where Ranma had been smacked down at the beginning but after the time was up his last practice fight had left him only with minor disadvantages, such as not being able to get the seals off quickly enough or lack of practice.

"Ready for a good nights sleep Ranma?" asked Ebisu with a wider grin, Ranma chuckled in response, if either of them had woken during the night, they had attacked the other… Ranma had come out of that better than his trainer, his ability to sleep through attacks were phenomenal, and Ebisu had eventually resorted to foul play.. waving food near Ranma.

"Ha, I got plenty of sleep Ebisu, an old man like you probably needs more than me anyway." Snorted Ranma jokingly, Ebisu coughed heartily. "Anyway, do I see you tomorrow?" asked Ranma curiously, Ebisu had mentioned something about getting a team but Ranma hadn't followed it up.

"Nah, although we can spar occasionally if you need it, but you're teammates will probably pick you up or something in the morning." Ebisu said calmly, he had been picked up and done the picking several times over the years.. Ninja's didn't die often… but disasters like the nine tails or collapsed houses etc _did_ happen.

"Okay… Ranma said grudgingly, "I suppose I'll see you around sometime." Ebisu nodded and bounded through the gates and onto a roof before vanishing . Ranma sighed and started jogging through the streets to find Homura's home.

* * *

"So, what do you think?" asked Hikari.

Naoko frowned, "He hasn't detected us."

They were two girls, following Ranma from rooftop through the streets. They were both dressed sensibly, wearing not quite tight long sleeved shirts and pants, both were in dull colors, Naoko in a mid range brown shirt with darker pants and Hikari was wearing matched grey clothing. The duo had been sitting near the gate when they'd heard the two people identify themselves, Ranma Saotome was supposed to be the guy who was replacing Akiko, who'd chickened out when they found out Morino-head of intelligence- was stepping down to become a leader for a group of Genin, and worse, had chosen their group.

Hikari suddenly frowned, "I think he has known we've been here for a while now."

Naoko smiled, "You really think so?" she asked eagerly, it would be nice if the replacement was as good at detecting people as Akiko had been.

"Yeah… I think so." They both looked at each other and smiled, he was probably going to be okay.

"Think we should go down and introduce ourselves?" asked Naoko, Hikari frowned and shook her head.

"Now, I don't think so, if he hasn't detected us he'll find out in the morning, and if he has, he'll know who we were and why we did it in the morning anyway." Hikari said, it was true.

"So… uh.. what are you doing?" asked a voice from behind, they both spun around and drew a kunai each, before them on the rooftop stood the boy they had been following. Glancing backwards Naoko noticed that the boy was still walking along the ground heedlessly. "Bunshin no jutsu." muttered the girl angrily, why hadn't they noticed?

"We're checking you out." Hikari said suddenly, "You're pretty good looking."

Ranma's face suddenly developed a nervous tic… and then he ran and jumped from the roof, as he hit the ground Ranma sprinted into the distance.

"Shit, now look what you did Hikari!"

* * *

Authors Notes:

Hey Hey, check out Cory D. Rose's story at www.fictionpress.com /read.php?storyid=1538601

C. is one of the major inspirations for this series, and pretty much all the ones I write… I can guarantee if he had not helped me to improve my writing, this story would not exist!

It does seem like Gaara is going a little overboard with his new protect the precious (cough Gollum cough)

And while I'm on the track, I'd like to thank the reviewers who not only reviewed this story, but went ahead and read my other stories, and better yet, reviewed them… Katie, One Winged Yagami…

Especially Katie though, you reviewed my vignette! worships that's worth much Kudos!

And super extra special a whole line to yourself mention for the people who gave me large in depth reviews! Yes! You're brilliant!

Syncron, who reviewed from Chapter two back!

Zsych who also reviewed from Chapter Two!

Malichite who reviewed from chapter two… (am I sensing a pattern here?)

Victor-Ko from chapter Three! (the first review for the chapter too!!)

C.Rose from the third chapter,

And finally the man who's reviewed it all (over msn unfortunately)

Kung Lou!

Two new characters joined this… Adachi Naoko and Kinugasa Hikari (clan name first as per Japanese method of speech.)


	5. Chapter Four

Chapter Four – Super Ninja Strike!

* * *

"Good Morning Ranma" Homura called cheerfully, Ranma sat up in bed, food! Jumping out of bed he bounded to the wardrobe and grabbed a plain black shit and pants. As Ranma struggled to pull his pants on, dash out into the hall on one leg and hold his shirt with his teeth, Ranma learnt an important lesson.

Floors are cold AND hard.

Grumbling, Ranma stood back up and put his pants on quickly before putting the shirt on and bouncing down the hall and into the kitchen. Homura was their setting out a meal and Ranma took two plates from the counter and set them on the table, it wasn't _much _help, but it was better than not helping the young man reasoned. "Good Morning Homura.." Ranma said replied belatedly.

"Did you sleep well Ranma?" asked the elderly woman, Ranma had been fairly nervous when he had returned the previous evening, in fact… the boy had been almost scared… and wouldn't tell Homura why.

"Yeah, like a log" Ranma declared cheerfully, yeah, no one had snuck into his room, there wasn't anyone hanging around outside… in short, the girls couldn't have been serious. Na uh, not a chance. "So… I'm getting a team this morning?" he asked between mouthfuls of breakfast- very nice bacon and eggs.

"Yes, would you like any information on your team mates?" Homura asked as she ate her own food with all the manners Ranma was ignoring. "It would be useful to have a broad overview…" although, it was always more interesting to find out the harder way.

Ranma paused in indecision, it was kind of… nabiki'ish to get information off someone like they were a potential mark or something… and Ranma really didn't like the thought of that. "…I'd rather not… Thanks though Homura." Ranma said finally before filling his mouth with food.

"As you wish Ranma." Homura said calmly, "in any case, they will be here soon." Ranma nodded at her and ate the last of his meal.

"Okay, I'll just go grab my stuff." Ranma said as he placed the used plates in the sink.

Homura nodded and stood as well, "I'll take care of the washing up Ranma."

Ranma nodded and bounced up the stairs to his room, inside he quickly strapped on his belt, fastened the shuriken pouch to his leg and attached all the kunai sheathes. Checking himself Ranma realized that he had forgotten something... "Bracers!" he muttered literally bouncing over to the wardrobe again Ranma opened shelf after shelf as he rummaged for the vital equipment. "Aha!" he declared as he attached the bracers around his arms. Sliding the sleeves down to conceal the arm protection Ranma smiled and checked himself in the mirror, his keen eyes could pick out the sheathe hidden in his sleeve, but the two down at his ankles weren't anywhere near as obvious.

"Ranma? They're here." Homura called out, Ranma grinned and walked out of his room, forcing his pace to be nice and slow, as he reached the top of the stairs he realised they were either outside or in the front room... so Ranma grinned and slid down the banister. At the bottom as he put his feet down on the wooden floor and slowed to a stop in the middle of the hallway he also realised that the people could see the hallway.

"Damn." Muttered Ranma as noticed everyone was looking at him. Chuckling lightly Ranma strode into the room and checked out the team. It was the two girls who'd been shadowing him last night, and an older guy wearing a black beanie and overcoat whose expression was almost as harsh as Ryoga's. "Uh, Hi?" Ranma said dumbly.

The man stepped forward and offered his hand; Ranma took it and ignored the weak attempt to crush his own hand. "Morino Ibiki, formerly head of ANBU interrogation, I was also the examiner for the last chuunin exam."

Ranma nodded clueless as usual, but if he was going to toss around names… "Ranma Saotome, master of the Saotome School of Martial Arts..." Ranma grinned, for the people in the know; those words eclipsed almost anything, only grandmaster earned more respect (and derision for those who knew the pervert). Besides, a master of a school was capable of doing stuff that no normal human could think of, in a tight situation Ranma could lift tons of weight, move faster than sound or do anything it took to win.

"Kinugasa Hikari… Genin..." She smiled at Ranma, and then it broadened to a grin. "And not checking you out." Hikari almost sighed in relief as the tension Ranma had been literally emitting since his entrance dissipated.

"Adachi Naoko, also a Genin." Naoko declared while rolling her eyes. "Unfortunately, I've got nothing impressive to add to it."

Ranma grinned, "Before I beat that dragon halfbreed I had the same problem." The pigtailed boy with a snicker.

Ibiki frowned a little, the boy hadn't been impressed at all with his position, and furthermore had thrown out something that the boy believed not only one-upped him, but also beat it hands down. And what the heck was a dragon halfbreed? "In any case Ranma-kun, we need to move out and do some practice to find out how good you are. Homura-San?"

Ranma opened his mouth to speak but closed it suddenly, Homura smiled, perhaps he could hold his tongue well enough to get along with the others. "Enjoy your day Ibiki-kun." Ibiki nodded and headed for the door, Hikari and Naoko started to follow quickly but Ranma was stopped by Homura. "Good luck holding your tongue down Ranma." She said with a mischievous smile.

"uh yeah.." Ranma said with a blush of embarrassment, "I almost started bragging then." Shrugged the pigtailed boy stepped quickly out the door and into the front yard where the rest of his team and Morino stood waiting. "Uh, sorry bout that?" Ranma said tentatively.

Ibiki shrugged, "No problem…we'll be heading out to the normal training area for today." The man seemed to sigh suddenly, "no missions for a few days." Ranma stayed silent, unsure if this was directed his way or not. "In any case Ranma-kun, Ebisu-kun refused to give me any information on your fighting skills."

Ranma suddenly grinned and the two girls both glanced at him curiously, "Well… I don't know how good you'd consider to be Ebisu to be…" Ranma knew very well that Ebisu was an elite trainer, and a jounin to boot. "But I managed to fight him to a stalemate in hand to hand combat… thought I didn't fair quite that well in the rest of the ways." Ranma shrugged like it didn't mean much.

"Amazing Ranma-kun." Hikari said in awe. "Fighting a Juunin to a standstill... that's pretty impressive…" Naoko nodded as well, it was damned impressive to the two Genin.

"eh, just call me Ranma." Ranma muttered, he had to admit, as nice as people being polite was…it was kind of nicer to have someone speak to familiarly.

"Sure stuff Ranma." Naoko said with a pretty smile.

"Alright team. Basic training exercise…" Ibiki had stopped in front of them, they were in a clearing now, two trees were near each other in the centre and about fifteen metres clear space until the forest began again. "I have two bells." Ranma fought a yawn. "You have to get them from me, begin."

Ranma suddenly felt very, very alone. Looking around he noticed the two girls had gone and hidden themselves. Sighing Ranma pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and twirled it above his head for a moment before dropping it and vanishing from view.

_'An interesting technique…'_ thought Ibiki, _'complete invisibility, I can't even sense him.'_ Looking around the jounin noticed that the technique didn't cover the fact that Ranma had walked over to the bushes, near to where Hikari and Naoko had met up.

"Where's Ranma?" hissed Naoko quietly, they were both laying on their stomach's and watching Ibiki from beneath a low bush.

"I don't know, he vanished… damn, we should have told him to follow our lead before we got here." Growled Hikari angrily. "Damn, damn damn."

"Stop worrying, I'm here." A voice whispered from behind them.

Wriggling out backwards quietly Naoko smiled as she realised it was Ranma. "Thank god you didn't attack him by yourself." Ranma shrugged, he had thought of doing it, but Homura and Ebisu's advice on teamwork had come to mind in the nick of time.

"Okay Ranma, we're going to have to work as a team" Hikari whispered, "We're pretty good at Ranged attacks, but not so well at close combat."

Ranma nodded, "I'm best at close combat, but I can hit anything with any weapon, no problems." And he could too, after dealing with flying bandanna's, noodles, weird Frenchmen and most especially, Mousse… Ranma was confident he could catch and throw well enough to his target dead on.

"Good, we'll pull back and set up what equipment we have for an ambush… and decide who goes hungry." Muttered Naoko. The three immediately bounded away through the trees to a hiding spot.

"And next week I'll ask for…" muttered Ibiki in boredom, he was filling out a small day planner for next week. "Hmm, Naoko and Hikari were faster than this last time…" but, this time they were integrating a third person into their group… Ibiki suddenly jumped to the side, the tree he had been resting in had an outline of daggers that had just barely missed him. "That's pretty good…" the man muttered, the shuriken were buried deeply into the wood, the ones that hit with one spike were dug in all the way until it came to the middle two spikes… "He's pretty strong." He murmured to himself, "and a good aim on the boy." Ibiki frowned; the boy was strong in both ranged and close up, good for the boy, bad for the teacher.

"Ready?" whispered Naoko, Ranma nodded and tensed up, he had Ibiki's measure and was ready to begin the plan. "Go!" she hissed and vanished behind him, Ranma pelted out full speed and Ibiki spun to meet him, Ranma grinned and dashed in closely, Ibiki frowned and swung at Ranma, who ran through the punch. Behind Ibiki Ranma hit the man at the small of the back with an open palmed strike, Ibiki flew forward and Ranma dismissed the Bunshin clone.

As Ibiki spun back to attack Ranma two Kunai came flying past him from behind, cursing the jounin jumped upwards to miss the net, Ranma grinned and jumped up to meet him midair, Ibiki's eyes widened and the elder man smiled… the smile vanished into a frown as the dozen blows which were exchanged pushed Ibiki back down onto the ground while Ranma's altitude grew higher.

Ibiki dropped to the ground and cursed as he sunk down to his waist, a pair of hands reached to his waist retrieved the bells, while a fist flew towards his face. Ibiki growled and was about to retrieve the bells when Ranma's foot forced him to dodge backwards, pulling himself out of the ground Ibiki swore again; as he jumped back… they had won.

* * *

"YES!" screamed Naoko as she extracted herself from the Earth Jutsu, Hikari also pulled herself out of the ground and stood on the grass for a moment until she realised what they had done. "YES!" she bellowed in delight, while genin teams did sometimes manage to get the bells during the exercise, the times when that happened was few and far between… and to make the occasion better, their names along with their teachers, would be posted on a plaque in the Jounin meeting room.

Ranma approached cautiously, they had won? It wasn't a genjutsu?

"Oh! Ranma!" Naoko and Hikari noticed him simultaneously and let loose a flying tackle. "We did it!" cried out Hikari as she let him go. Naoko let him go slowly as well, noticing Ranma's blush in the process… "Pervert." She muttered. "But… We won!"

Ibiki rolled his eyes, "Okay, You've won… two of you get lunch." Reality shifted… two of them get lunch, the third doesn't... Naoko had warned him about that, and overrode him when he volunteered to miss out.

Ranma frowned, "Can't we go home and have an hours rest or something instead of you shouting us lunch?" he offered, "after all, we did get the bells…"

Ibiki frowned, "no. Come on." They followed the jounin past the clearing to where two lunches were set on a row of three posts. "Who is missing out?"

"I am." Ranma and Naoko said simultaneously..

"Be quiet Ranma. I am." Naoko growled. Ranma opened his mouth to object but it was covered by Hikari's hand, Ranma sighed and nodded in acquiescence.

Ibiki tied Naoko to the pole efficiently. "Be right back, going to grab my own lunch." Said the jounin confidently, "If either of you feed her, I'll remove you from the team."

Ranma shrugged, just because he had followed advice and listened for a plan, and then had been unable to think of a better one didn't mean that he wasn't willing to lose the team.

"And I'll make sure you won't get on another one, Saotome." Ibiki finished with a growl. Ranma merely shrugged again.

As soon as he was gone, Ranma opened his bento and looked at the rice within, glancing at the other two people he spoke in an ominous tone, "Today, I will show you a technique so amazing, so awesomely powerful, that the nobility of france slaughtered over five hundred people just to hide!"

Naoko's eyes widened, "wow…. How did you learn it Ranma?" Hikari merely rolled her eyes.

"Well, Ranma said as he flexed his fingers and picked up the chopsticks. "My… friend, got kidnapped and it was found that there was an engagement between the two houses… I was substituted because.." Ranma blinked, he couldn't remember why. "I forget, but, I was substituted and forced to learn the family school of combat… combat over food."

Naoko blinked and looked sceptical, Hikari outright laughed at it. "No joke, they were pretty weird…" Ranma continued, "the school depended on someone having an extraordinary long tongue… well, as your about to see, I don't have one of those and I'm also incapable of detaching my jaw..." Ranma stuck his tongue out as far as he could, and indeed, it did not even reach the bottom of his jaw. "so, as I was ineffective in combat, I was forced to search for alternate eating means… "

Naoko giggled despite being tied up and hikari did as well. "The whole point of Gourmet De Fois Gras, which is the style of combat, is that instead of eating the food yourself . force the enemy to eat without them knowing…" Ranma smiled and looked down at his food. "oh, dear, it seems to be all gone.." he looked up at Naoko, "oops, you have a piece of Rice on your face." Reaching over with the chopsticks he removed it and ate it himself.

"woooow." Murmured Naoko, "that was awesome!"

Hikari nodded too, her eyes wide in awe. "I didn't even notice you move!"

Ranma grinned, "That's the idea, although during combat when you are moving real fast already, its much easier to use… but it took me almost all of the speech to get you fed."

"So you fed all of your food to Naoko?" asked Hikari suddenly, Ranma nodded "so you haven't eaten?" Ranma smiled and pulled out a half eaten packet of lollies. "I see Ranma.." hikari said with a frown.. "You really shouldn't have fed all of the food to Naoko.. you'll be tired and hungry when she's not."

Ranma snorted, "Not a chance," he shrugged lightly, "I had a huge breakfast this morning, and I never have had much of a chance to eat lunch during my training trip and even when I settled in Nerima." '_Nerima.._'"so it's nothing off my nose, besides, I've still got two packs of lollies."

* * *

Ibiki was pretty impressed, despite the stupidity of announcing his ability in the technique, Ranma had managed to feed the girl.. and shown that he kept small amounts of rations on him even for the smallest of exercises.. always a good idea thought the jounin, who was munching on some fruit he had hidden in his coat. Lollies weren't a bad choice either, true, no long term energy.. but for short term exercises like this, they were excellent.

Walking out into the clearing he approached from behind Ranma, Hikari looked up at him and smiled tentatively. "Hello Ranma." Ibiki said in a cruel tone. "You haven't been feeding Naoko have you?"

Ranma grinned up at him as he stopped next to the two people standing in front of Naoko. "You know.. I knew that you were hiding only twenty metres behind me the whole time." Ranma shrugged again, he had suspected the purpose of the exercise when he had noticed there was only two bells. "A lot of my pops teachings were the dumbest things around you know? so when he said something, you were reasonably sure that he was wrong, stuff like kick someone when their down…" Ranma's eyes took on a steely glint, "ignore or forget those who don't succeed first up." And this one, was the bane. "and don't bother looking out for someone else."

Ranma smiled again and his eyes focussed on Ibiki, "but since getting here… It's all about teamwork and watching out for other people…everything is based on that here… this training exercise is too."

Ibiki nodded a little in surprise, he had figured Ranma to be a dumb jock who happened to be good at fighting, the behaviour had backed that up until now. "Your right. And you passed fine." Ranma grinned, "but don't make a habit of challenging your superiors boy."

Ranma smirked, "Only when I got proof that needs to be brought up." Ibiki frowned, "I'd have ended up a cold blooded thief and murderer if I hadn't have had that." Ranma said coolly, Ibiki nodded reluctantly as he removed Naoko's ropes.

"I can live with that."

* * *

The Third hokage's face was being repaired, the scar was being filled in with a combination of rock shaping jutsu and cement. Turning away from that sight Tsunade looked across the village. The buildings were bigger, and more modern than the ones that had been around thirty years ago when she had lived here… ten years, a long time for some, a pittance to others. For Tsunade however it was a chunk of her lifetime… and if she used the seal too many times to heal herself… it would be even longer.

But that was then, and here was now. "This village has changed quite a bit since I was gone…" murmured the blond bombshell. The people were now more confident than they used to be, Tsunade had never thought that they could recover from the Nine Tails attack. "…." The city was prosperous, and Tsunade was suddenly very glad she had returned. "Starting today. The village is my responsibility as…" those words sounded sweet, but not as sweet as the words which would bring true the dream of her two dead loved ones. "The fifth Hokage."

* * *

"Ranma Saotome?" Tsunade had never heard of him, or of the family name either, while that wasn't totally unbelievable considering there was over seven thousand people in konoha, every clan was known by its fighting style if not by face or name… and this Saotome clan specialized in Taijutsu to a point where some of the council was worried that the boy was too strong. It had been barely ten minutes since the team the boy was on had escorted their Jounin to the Jounin lounge and had carved their names into the steel tablet there.. and the committee was suddenly asking if he was physically as strong as Tsunade herself. "Never heard of him…. How long has the family been in Konoha?" asked the Fifth Hokage guardedly.

"Since Naruto fought Gaara, during the fight Gaara summoned something, which Ranma-kun killed." Standing at the door of the newly inducted Hokage's office stood Homura. Koharu smiled calmly at her, as did Maharo. "Congratulations on your grandson becoming Chuunin Maharo-san." Homura said with a smile before turning to face the fifth again.

"Ranma-kun was brought to our world by Gaara's summon, he remained after he finished killing the summon- who happened to be the phoenix king- and after Gaara was defeated." Homura paused to take a breath, and surprisingly Maharo stepped in to speak.

"We need him." Spoke the genius bluntly, Homura could almost not believe her ears. "The fact is, we have lost nearly half our forces and if my grandson was female I'd ask her to attempt to get to know him." Homura blinked, this was a very unexpected source and method of help. "His skills, if he is willing to share them, and if not, just by his presence, will increase our villages fighting power…" Maharo suddenly smiled, "besides, while I would rate him as nearly as smart as my grandson, he is focussed on the art of combat… and his code of honour will not allow him to betray his friends." The committeeman smiled and shrugged, "As is, I recommend that he be left alone for now… besides, the longer he's in his current situation, the more loyal he will become to not only Homura-san, but to the village as a whole."

Tsunade nodded, "Good, that's enough information then. He can stay where he is, we'll re-evaluate him in a month, and again in six." Homura sighed in relief, having someone do anything to the boy at the moment wouldn't be good, not that there was ever a good time for that, but now he was gaining trust for the village… Tsunade smiled suddenly, "Besides, he is under the command of Morino Ibiki-kun, he'll know if Ranma-san becomes less loyal."

"Agreed… I believe that's all that was urgent to address.. and Sasuke-san is waiting at the hospital for you.. Naruto-kun is quite loud downstairs." Said Homura with a small smile, the headache that boy gave her… hmph.

* * *

The two girls were a little shy of Ibiki, Ranma hadn't exactly figured out why yet, Ibiki didn't look tough, although the beanie and black trench coat gave him a thuggish look. But in any case, Naoko and Hikari didn't want to ask… but they were game enough to ask him to ask Ibiki… "Ibiki-sensei?" Ranma begun tentatively, "We were wondering if we could learn some new techniques or do a different sort of training exercise with the rest of the afternoon…"

Ibiki smiled down at Ranma, "What type of different things?" Ranma shrugged, and Ibiki carefully made sure his smile didn't get any wider. "In fact, It's a little curious that you would ask for different things, when you've not experienced the normal things…" Ibiki inwardly chortled, the expression of surprise on Ranma's face was pretty good. "But if Naoko or Hikari were to ask, they've surely done the normal things…" Ibiki stopped in the middle of the street and Ranma took an extra step before stopping. Naoko and Hikari stopped a few steps behind them and Ibiki smiled, "While I have no doubts the scrawny lunch I provided has left two of you full and Naoko hungry…" Ibiki paused to chuckle at his own joke, "But I'm hungry for dinner, foods on me there." With that, the former interrogator walked into the restaurant they had stopped in front of.

"Ranma? What did he say about exercises?" asked Naoko before Ranma moved.

"You need to ask him yourselves, he won't let me be the scapegoat because I haven't seen the normal exercises…" Ranma said with a grin, he had warned them, but they hadn't believed him then- he was pretty much the best ninja in their eyes- but she didn't have a choice but to listen now. "Come on, food.." Ranma strode in, Naoko and Hikari followed quickly on Ranma's heel.

* * *

Ranma looked up from his meal, the five empty stacked plates said everything that was needed about the restaurant in the boy's eyes., "Damn…" he murmured. Ibiki frowned, what was Ranma doing? "Ibiki Sensei? I need to go… I'll be back in a little while." Ranma stood up and stacked his plates carefully while muttering under his breath, only just loud enough that Ibiki could pick it out. "Not even Ryoga could get so lost as to end up in another dimension right?" after that he nodded to his team-mates and teacher before bolting from the restaurant.

"I'm going to follow him, here's money for the meal." Ibiki said suddenly as he handed over a wad of notes. "give me the change tomorrow or whenever we see each other next." Ibiki didn't bother acknowledging the questions they threw his way as he dashed out after Ranma.

Ranma was perched on a building, across the street and high up on a building, although a little lower than the roof where Ranma perched, sat a boy was seated on a cushioned bench, a crutch next to him… he was letting of an aura of well trained ki-body energy, and it was nearly as depressed as Ryoga on a good day. The boy was dressed in green and had the freakiest hairdo ever… Ranma wasn't willing to bet that the boys face didn't match the rest of him. But.. he really should go over and check it out..

"Hello?" said Ranma tentatively, the boy jumped a little, on closer inspection Ranma could see shards of something under the boys skin, looking at his covered hands he couldn't particularly pick out anything, but the boys fingers showed extreme training and they had the shards under the skin there. "Want to chat?" asked Ranma, "you look like you could need it."

The boy turned his head away. "I don't need your pity…" he said quietly.

Ranma rolled his eyes. "It's a good thing I didn't offer it then." Said the martial artist coolly. "Your hurt, pretty badly if you need a crutch, but you've got your Ki… I mean, Body energy, under good control, why haven't you used it to heal yourself?"

The boy looked at him. "huh?"

Ranma blinked, it was pretty basic, almost the earliest thing he had learnt to do with his ki.. before he had even arrived at Nerima he'd learnt how to do it. "Uh, you know? push your energy throughout your body while meditating and it just takes care of the rest?"

"My name is Rock Lee." The boy said, "I fought using a forbidden technique, the Hokage said that I can't be a ninja anymore du the injuries..."

Ranma stiffened, okay… "As a Kid, the first time I opened the limit breakers, my bones shattered… Oyaji taught me this technique to heal my bones, they were shattered beyond medical repair… their was bone shards throughout my body and I was barely able to walk with a pair of crutches." Ranma flexed his arm and glanced at Lee, "As you can see, I don't have that problem… I can teach you."  
Lee's eyes lit up, "You'll be able to heal me?"

Ranma frowned, "No, but if you can learn the technique, you'll be able to heal yourself… although I can teach you in a minute, it will take months for you to finish learning."

"Why did you come up here?" asked Lee suddenly, "What reason do you have to help me?"

Ranma shrugged, "I thought you were someone I knew, I've never met anyone who was as depressed as he always is… I've never seen him happy for more than a few minutes, at most." Ranma looked Lee in the eyes, "As to why I'm helping you… Ryoga developed a technique based on his depression… it never left him… I made the mistakes that turned him into what he is now… and if I can help another person not go onto that path…" Ranma sighed, "My debt will begin to be paid."

Lee nodded, "So how do I do this?"

Ranma smiled and leant forward.. "this is easy if you've ever used the Limit Breakers before?" Lee shook his head in the negative. "They are eight limits on the body, with the breakers off, you can perform far beyond the normal."

Lee suddenly smiled at Ranma, "Like the eight heavenly gates right?" Ranma blinked and Lee continued, "The first gate is the Open Gate, the second the Energy/Heal Gate, Third the Life Gate, Fourth."

Ranma cut him off, "Yes, that's them, the Limits… Okay Lee-san, as you know of them, all you have to do is open the second one…don't open the third, or you'll go overboard with your healing… which is bad." Ranma grinned, "This will still take you almost a month to heal though, unless someone does surgery halfway through or something… that's what my old man had done to me."

"That's all?" Lee asked in confusion, it sounded so simple…

"Well, you do have to keep the gate open for extremely long amounts of time while concentrating your energy to flow along your body… and you can't really open the other gates while its on.." Ranma shrugged, "Besides, you called it the energy/heal gate right? How do you think it got that name?"

Lee nodded in surprise. It did make sense… "Okay, I can do that…" the green clad boy stiffened suddenly, "Tsunade-sama has asked me to take an operation… but it has only a fifty percent chance to live through it…"

Ranma snorted, "Take it, you'll live through it without a problem, especially if you have the gate open while you do it… your body will see what the doctor's doing and then mimic it." Ranma stood up, ready to leave. "Another reason I'm so confident in your living is that once the limits are broken, or gates opened, a little of the healing stays with you… and the people who can't handle that healing? They die as soon as they break the limit."

"you never told me your name?" asked Lee suddenly.

Ranma shrugged, "Ranma Saotome… I'll see you around." Declared the young man before launching himself off the balcony and vanishing into the street below.

"Thankyou Ranma." Murmured Gai under his breath, he was standing just around the corner and it looked like his pep up talk wasn't as desperately needed as it was before.. although, no harm in giving it to him now anyway.

"Interesting." Murmured Ibiki, he had been sitting on the roof above them, although the Jounin had been caught off guard by Ranma before, it just showed that the boy could pierce Chuunin level hiding jutsu. Before jumping off to follow Ranma, Ibiki landed on the balcony behind Lee and gave Gai the thumbs up mid way during his speech. Gai ignored it and integrated a reply in his next pose, Ibiki nodded and fell backwards, resuming his tailing of the boy.

* * *

"Here he comes." Muttered Kidomaru quietly.

"Sasuke-sama?" asked Jiroubou.

"Of course moron, who else could we be waiting to leave Konoha?" growled Tayuya angrily.

"Be silent." Ordered the fourth person, and they were.

* * *

"Who is Sasuke?" asked Ranma, Naoko and Hikari had been talking excitedly about his missing status since arriving at the meeting spot, Ranma couldn't see the problem, after all… how many teachers had he had over the years? Ebisu , Khu-lon, happosai, Genma, Soun had even taught him a trick or two.. Ryoga, lin lin and lung lung… Ranma considered anyone he had learnt a technique from, or due to them, as a bit of a teacher, when he tallied it up, the list cam to over two hundred names.

"Sasuke-kun? He's the last Uchiha!" Ranma blinked and shrugged as if to ask what the hell that was meant to mean to him. Naoko groaned and rolled her eyes. "He's an awesome fighter, and he can use the sharingan to instantly learn any technique after seeing it just once!"

This caught Ranma's attention, the ability to copy any technique once was a good one…Ranma was good, any technique that was similar to his own, or used similar premises even he could copy after seeing it once and given an hour or two of time… but to do it instantly… that was impressive indeed. Just as he was about to ask more of this sasuke boy and cause the fic author to be permanently inundated with yaoi fangirls, Ibiki arrived, much to the authors delight.

Looking at his group Ibiki spoke short and to the point. "I'm going on a B rank mission, your staying behind, take care of yourselves.. bye." Before vanishing as he left at full tilt.

Ranma groaned, but suddenly looked up, "I'm going to go meet someone for a while okay Naoko? Hikari?" the two girls nodded and went back to chatting, Ranma thought they'd be there all day talking about the wonders of some guy who ran away looking for power. As he jumped up and over the village wall Ranma met inside Lee, who was looking very chipper indeed. "Hey Hey Lee." Ranma said cheerfully.

Lee grinned back, his smile widening to a point Ranma was sure his overly large eyes would pop out from the pressure of his rising cheeks. "Ranma-kun!" Lee started enthusiastically, "The surgery was a success! And Tsunade-sama was impressed that my body had healed so much on its own but I didn't tell her about the technique in case you didn't want anyone to know or if it was a secret technique or something like that!!" blurted the younger boy excitedly, Ranma groaned internally, Lee had a serious case of Hero worship. "Anyway, the team who's gone to recover Sasuke has left only a little while ago, and if we run fast, we can catch up…" Lee said quickly, "I'm really worried that they won't be able to handle it if trouble comes there way… and the Hokage said I could go and take anyone who I thought could help.. and I thought of you straight away Ranma-kun, so ready for a mission?"

Ranma blinked as he mentally sorted through the words, Hokage said Lee could recruit someone to help the other team.. Lee chose him, are you ready.. "uh, sure?" hedged Ranma tentatively.

Lee posed and gave Ranma a thumbs up, "Okay, lets go!" he said, bounding away before Ranma could even move.

"Shit." Muttered Ranma as he caught up, "How far away are they?"

Lee shrugged, "Not more than three miles… I can do it in under six minutes.. you?"

Miles… miles… how long was a mile? Ranma shrugged, he'd be able to do it no matter what. "Easy, lets put on the speed." Lee grinned and stopped suddenly, reaching under the ankle coverings he wore he detached two sets of weights, one from each shin. Setting those carefully next to the gate he stood up, flexed and started running at a steady pace, Ranma watched Lee bounce along the treetops for a moment before joining him.

* * *

"Chouji!" hissed Lee angrily, chouji was leaning on a tree, there was an arrow above him pointing towards the sound village and they had just passed the man Chouji had defeated. "Do you have any food Ranma?" asked Lee desperately, Ranma silently handed a bag of lollies over to the green ninja who grinned and opened the packet, Chouji immediately leaned forward and bit the bottom of the packet, somehow managing to suck the majority of the lollies into his mouth.

"Shit." Muttered Ranma in surprise.

Rock Lee just grinned and muttered quickly to Chouji, "Okay, we're going on ahead to catch up with the team, you'll be okay?" Chouji nodded. And the two leapt off.

They passed another three people. each time Lee muttering they would be fine, finally they came to a clearing and found ahead of them an orange clad boy fighting a man who appeared to be using his own bones in combat. "Naruto.." muttered Lee while pointing to the orange clad boy. "I'll take on his enemy, you go with Naruto and protect him while he chases Sasuke."

Ranma opened his mouth to object, but shut it instantly, he couldn't think of a better plan, so he would follow Lee's. "Agreed… hurry." Grumbled Ranma as he dashed off, behind him Lee inserted himself into the fight as Ranma circled the clearing to the opposite side where he'd intercept Naruto and join forces.

* * *

Authors Note: and so, I catch up to the Manga, almost… and soon.. all new territory..


	6. Chapter Five

Chapter five – You want to say that again!? (Slight Update on1/6/04)

* * *

"Hey hey, who are you?" Asked Naruto suspiciously, they were standing just past the clearing, behind them fought a freak and Rock Lee.

Ranma nodded tersely to the boy, "Saotome Ranma, Rock Lee sent me to rendezvous with you and help retrieve Sasuke while he distracted that." Ranma pointed behind Naruto's back, Naruto nodded and leapt away, not commenting as Ranma kept close to him.

"You won't interfere unless I ask for it will you?" Asked Naruto suddenly.

Ranma stared at him for a moment mid air before they bounced to the next tree. "I am going to fight with you, the entire way… the mission comes first right?" finished the young man angrily.

Naruto grinned at him; Ranma found that smile to be far too much like a pleased cat for his own liking. "Good, Mission first. Don't forget it."

"Sasuke!" Naruto suddenly bellowed, in front of them Ranma caught sight of the kid; he was bounding away from them, but at a slower speed. The black haired boy ignored Naruto's call and continued to bound away.

Ranma hissed to his temporary companion. "I'll slow him down… you get first hit in." pulling out a dozen shuriken and a kunai Ranma broke the tip of the kunai and threw the shuriken within a moment. As Sasuke noticed the Shuriken and dodged hem, Ranma threw the kunai at the boy as fast as he could manage, it smashed into the boys shoulder, but however it did nothing but bruise and leave a few minor scratches.

"Go back Naruto." Sasuke said, his face was frightful, the curse seal almost completely dominated his skin and Ranma was suddenly reminded of a tattooed man that he'd met in china. Shuddering, the pigtailed man drew three kunai and placed them between the fingers of one hand, he held no fear that the enemy would wrest those weapons from him... he appeared to be all power and little skill… he was too young to have adjusted his fighting style to his body.

"Not without you Sasuke." Naruto growled, he had promised Sakura to return with Sasuke, and if he had to move heaven and hell to hold that promise… the orange clad boy would. "I've promised, and I don't go back on my word, that's my Ninja Way!"

Sasuke sneered at Naruto "Your way has nothing to my power; I must seek out Orochimeru for more." Leaping forward the boy lashed out to Naruto, but was thrown off course by Ranma's sudden attack from the side. As Sasuke impacted on a tree quite heavily Ranma's eyes sought out the point he'd punched the boy, a small bruise was there but it was fading under his eyes… Sasuke half again as fast as Ryoga, and about half as strong judged Ranma quickly… if the boy's skill was high, then there was a possibility he could defeat Ranma in a fight, but as is.. The boy held no chance, especially against Ranma and Naruto.

"The only things I know of Orochimeru is that he was driven out because of his weakness, and then he failed in his bid to destroy Konoha, another sign of weakness." Ranma sneered, "You've still got a chance to stay in the Leaf Village and become strong… but you won't do it under a weakling like him!"

Naruto grinned and decided to enlarge upon Ranma's words. "Yeah, he got beaten to shit by Tsunade… and I beat Kabuto, who is meant to be his best fighter!" the fox boy grin grew wider... "If that's how strong his people are, Genin level Ninja… why the hell are you going?"

Sasuke wavered, and the cursed seal retreated a little for a moment before coming back with a vengeance. "I am an avenger! I must seek out power wherever I can get it!" The response was not what he was hoping for; Ranma started snickering and soon was holding his sides in laughter. The Uchiha bellowed in rage and dashed forward, only to be thrown to the side again by Ranma's fist.

"You think this is seeking out power?" Ranma's sneer almost twitched to a grin, "You think you're an avenger?" Ranma snorted, Ryoga was an avenger, this boy? "You're too young to avenge anything… and if you go now to Orochimeru… you won't get a chance to grow into an avenger, you'll just be a lackey for the rest of your pitiful life."

Naruto was nodding quickly, "Orochimeru probably just wants your Sharingan, he'll wait to you sleep, cut it out and put it in his own head!" that didn't sound too probable, it was unlikely at best… but Sasuke seemed to be thinking it over. "You ever wonder why Orochimeru left the Akatsuki?" Naruto was throwing out bullshit now and he knew it… but if this was what it took to persuade Sasuke to come back… "It was because your brother beat the shit out of him repeatedly, how the hell are you going to become an avenger when your master couldn't even defeat him!"

Ranma grinned as Sasuke wavered; deciding now was a good time for the trump card the pigtailed boy tossed the proverbial gauntlet. "I've killed a god…"Well… Saffron was godlike... that counted. "If you leave Konoha… You'll lose the chance to study under me," Not that Ranma was the only person to study under. "Or any of the great ninja's who want to see your brother dead."

Naruto unclenched his fist as he breathed in deeply. "Besides… who else apart from Kakashi-Sensei can teach you the Sharingan?"

"No." Sasuke declared as he shook his head… his voice however showed how much indecision he was in.

Naruto's eyes narrowed. "If you become like your brother and Orochimeru will make you like him... The Uchiha clan will be destroyed… how much of Itachi's plans are going to come to fruition when you become his doll!"

Sasuke looked up and glared at Naruto. "What makes you think that's part of his plan!" snarled the cursed boy.

"Why else did he tell you to live like scum!" Naruto sneered at his teammate angrily. "Unless he couldn't bring himself to finish the clan, and he was hoping you would finish it for him!"

Uchiha Sasuke relaxed out of his stance, Ranma smiled in relief and Naruto cheered for joy. "Come on Sasuke! We got to go find the rest of the team!"

Ranma frowned, they weren't going to at least tie up the boy or render him unconscious? "I know for sure that at least one of the enemy is dead, the boy Chouji killed him." Sasuke looked at Ranma in surprise and then sneered. "Probably just luck."

Ranma laughed in the boys face, causing him to clench his fists. "I saw some of the battle," Ranma said with a cold face. "The other ninja, he didn't stand a chance." That was a lie, Ranma hadn't even seen the battle.. But this needed to be done.

"Feh." Said Sasuke, Naruto bounded up to a tree, and Ranma indicated that Sasuke would go between him and Naruto. "Don't trust me?" asked Sasuke coolly.

"Should I trust one who abandoned strength for weakness?" asked Ranma with a small cruel smile. Sasuke immediately clenched his fists, but Naruto called his name and the boy sniffed and jumped up to follow Naruto.

It took only two bounds for them to reach the clearing, two ninja's stood over the body of a third. Lee and a ninja who Ranma didn't recognize- he was covered in brown black and a smidgen of white- were standing over that bone guys corpse. Sasuke frowned, "This doesn't mean anything… the others could have won." Ranma frowned, that was stupid.

"Hey hey Lee! Gaara!" chortled Naruto as they came into range. Lee grinned and Ranma and he exchanged thumbs up.

"Hello Naruto-Kun." Murmured Gaara as he was pressured for reasons of his presence by Naruto. "We were called to aid you." Offered the ninja finally, "We should return along the route?"

Naruto nodded, "Come on Sasuke!" he cheered before bounding off, the rest of the group waited for Sasuke to move before bounding away.

As they moved through the air, Lee engaged Ranma with questions, unfortunately pitched loudly enough for both Gaara, who was beside them, and Sasuke in front of them to hear. "Did you fight Sasuke? Did you win? Did you use any special techniques? Can you teach me any more techniques? I'll learn all the techniques you'll teach me or I'll do a thousand laps around the village and make up my own!" squealed Lee.

Ranma groaned, this was worse than Hero worship. "I'll teach you more techniques later.. Are your limits open now?" Ranma asked as he rolled his eyes in horror. Over to the side Ranma saw Gaara's lips twitch in a smile.

"Ohhh…I had to close them in the fight…" Lee said in shame, complete with downcast face and tears. "There! They are open now!" grinned the boy. And indeed, a light layer of ki covered the boy, it wasn't visible but Ranma could sense it dimly anyway.

"Good." Ranma said irritably. "I'll teach you a speed technique when we have time."

In front of them stood a large clearing, recently it hadn't even been that.. There was chopped wood everywhere and a female ninja was just finishing up making sure a corpse stayed dead. Naruto bounded past the blond haired girl and gave her a friendly touch on the shoulder before his jump carried him next to the second ninja… a black haired boy Ranma had met once in the village… he had been playing go at the time, so was probably real smart. "So far.. It's taken two to take down each of the Sound team.." Sasuke muttered.

Ranma frowned at Sasuke, his irritation coming again to the fore. "There's always power in having friends."

Naruto was babbling to the black haired boy, they both approached Ranma suddenly and Ranma nodded to them while keeping an eye on Sasuke. "I'm Shikamaru, nice to meat you Ranma-san." Said the black haired ninja.

Ranma immediately fastened his eyes onto him, mind reader? Not likely.. But. "I'd introduce myself.. But you know my name?" Ranma's voice raised pitch slightly in the last word.

Shikamaru smiled and nodded "My grandfather is on the committee, he works closely with Homura-san…" Ranma nodded in understanding, and as the enlarged group started to move again, Shikamaru placed himself between Lee and Ranma. "I'm told Homura-san speaks very highly of you Ranma… of both your fighting skill and general intelligence…" the boy shrugged and Ranma suddenly had an impression that the only reason Shikamaru knew it was because he was too lazy to avoid the information. "By the way, Gaara, Temari and Kankuro are of the Sand village." Ranma pointed to the blond haired girl shadowing Gaara's every bounce. "Temari." Ranma nodded silently… he could really get to like this guy.

Shikamaru called a stop suddenly, the group spread out until Temari called out "Tracks!" the group immediately bounded off to the right, except for Ranma, Sasuke and Gaara.

"Move Sasuke." Ranma ordered coolly.

"I haven't made up my mind yet.. Remember that." Sasuke said with a sneer as he launched himself into the air and after the group.

"I want to kill him." Gaara said as he and Ranma jumped to the trees.

"Kiba, Kankuro," Shikamaru pointed out the person as he mentioned their names. Ranma nodded in thanks, "This is Ranma." They nodded in return, something caught Ranma's eyes and he blurted into the air. "Why is Kankuro wrapped in bandages?" and indeed he was, he had retreated under the coverings and was again being carried by his defensive doll.

"He's a puppeteer, controls two dolls through Chakra." Shikamaru said quickly. Ranma nodded and ignored the looks the group gave him before they launched.

"How did he know?" Kankuro's doll asked Gaara quietly. Gaara merely shrugged in reply.

They traveled further, Ranma overheard one or two more remarks from Sasuke and was getting quite irritated by the boy. "Be quiet weakling." Ranma finally growled, Sasuke immediately opened his mouth to retort but caught the glares from several of the other members, most notably the sand Nins.

"He isn't a weakling!" defended Naruto angrily. Ranma just snorted and looked away.

"Shit." Yelled Kiba from ahead, as they caught up Ranma winced from the grievous wound in the boys stomach.

"Move." He said roughly as he pushed someone out of the way, Genma had taken wound like this from a gun once, although I had not been so large. Pouring ki out of his body like water from a faucet Ranma directed it down and through his arms where it wafted down onto the wound, the muscles and the torn intestine immediately moved around, reconnecting itself in front of their eyes, this was the equivalent of belting a fly with a steam roller to make sure it died… and it was both ki intensive and wasteful, the entire boys body would be fine except for the wound.

Panting Ranma dropped using the technique, the boy would be fine for now, all Ranma had managed to do was to slow the bleeding and allow the boy not to die in the next hour or so… although…

"His name's Neji." Shikamaru said suddenly, "He's a real pain in the ass most of the time, you know?... but.. He's pretty good."

"He needs to be taken to a hospital within a day." Muttered Ranma quietly. They all heard though…

"Heh, lucky he's alive now at all." Grumbled Sasuke.

Ranma looked up at the boy, he was sneering down at Neji and really wearing on Ranma's nerves.. There was something he just didn't like about the boy, and the attitude made it worse.

Ranma growled again, they had just picked up Chouji, who was going to be fine albeit tired for a few days, when Sasuke mentioned _again_ that he hadn't made up his mind yet.

Ranma walked over and picked up the boy by his shirt and raised him over his head. "What makes you think that if you decided to defect we'd let you get away with it?" the pigtailed young man snarled angrily.

"Oi! Put him down!" bellowed Naruto. Ranma dropped him and moved to the side of the group. They couldn't go anywhere yet, and none of the team wanted to separate for a while so they were stuck for a bit longer. Deciding he should just get the anger out of his system Ranma pumped all the angry ki into his fist and punched a tree with it. Predictably the tree went flying through the forest, breaking a half dozen or more down during its flight.

"I'll stop, and definitely come back if you can prove to me that you're better than Orochimeru… Fight me!" Sasuke snarled, he had seen what Ranma could do now, and it was above anything he'd seen so far from both sides.

Ranma blinked, as did everyone else. Gaara was smiling and so was the other two Sand Nins. Shikamaru had a look of panic, as he realized how out of control he was… and even Lee didn't look enthused. "Don't do it Ranma! You'll hurt him!" he said worriedly. This caused both Sasuke to become more determined and other people's jaws to drop.

"Come on, if you're so strong, what are you afraid of?" Ranma twitched and Sasuke continued on, sure of goading his enemy to fight. "Or are you a weak little housekeeping girl?"

Ranma froze at that and Shikamaru started to wave his hands quickly in front of him until Kiba pulled him away. "Let Sasuke fight, Shikamaru." He murmured quietly, he was right, if Sasuke didn't get defeated now he'd definitely leave the village later… but could Ranma fight and win?

"I'm not that strong." Ranma said as he glared at Sasuke angrily. "But combat isn't about strength, it's about luck and skill." Ranma's eyes narrowed, the curse although it appeared to be gone at the moment, was still a sore point… and noone would get awau challenging his manliness. "And don't ever call me a girl again if you expect to live."

"Feh, come on Dobe…" Sasuke said quickly as he activated the seal again, the cursed markings covered his body instantly. "And if anyone interferes.. I'm out of here." Dashing forward Uchiha attacked ruthlessly as the other people pulled back to the trees around them. Ranma dodged every attack with ease while not even bothering to conceal the smirk or to fight back. "Fight me!" snarled Sasuke angrily at Ranma.

"You're too weak." Said Ranma coldly, Sasuke howled in fury and dashed forward again only to miss in his attack. "Hiryuu Shoten HA!" bellowed Ranma suddenly as he raised his fist up in the air… everything paused for a moment before Uchiha Sasuke suddenly flew upwards and was knocked out mid air by a tree branch above him.

"He fought in a spiral…" murmured Shikamaru suddenly as everyone returned from their view spots…

Kiba was more than a little surprised. "He's out cold… he'll be out for a day or more I think…" finished the genin as he checked Sasuke's pulse.

Everyone glanced at Ranma, who ignored it all for a chance to glare at the unconscious boy. Suddenly he seemed to deflate, "Are we going on further or not?" asked the boy in an irritable but weary voice.

"We can return to the village today if we hurry.. But are we in good enough condition to do it?" Shikamaru asked, "And don't overestimate yourself."

"Ha! I could run all day." Naruto boasted immediately, Ranma rolled his eyes and leaned back on a tree… all these kids were so young.. Ranma had never felt this old before.

"I think I'll be fine… but what abut Neji, Chouji and Sasuke?" asked Kiba quickly.

"I can carry two people easily enough." Ranma muttered loudly enough for most of the people in the clearing to hear.

Shikamaru nodded tersely. "Kiba, you can carry a third… unless…" his eyes narrowed and he looked over at Kankuro. "Is it much harder to carry someone with your dolls Kankuro?"

Kankuro, or more accurately his doll, shook his head. "Not much more effort.. I can handle a person easy enough.

A Sudden bellow interrupted any prospects of finding out if anyone was going to carry anyone or not.

"LEE!!!"

"GAI-SENSEI!"

The two people, master and student leapt to each other and crashed mid-air where they immediately hugged each other and stood reminiscing about the spring of youth and other assorted bullshit.

"How could you leave so soon after the operation Lee??!!?" asked Gai as he looked down sorrowfully at his student. "You know you shouldn't exert yourself!"

Lee looked up in ultimate innocence. "But I got Ranma to do all the fighting!" Gai immediately spun around and dove towards Ranma, Ranma, who thought this was some insidious attack immediately ran and hid behind Gaara causing Gai to hit a tree headfirst.

Before any other horribly mentally scarring action could go on three more Ninja appeared, one was Kakashi, the second Ibiki and the third one a guy Ranma didn't know…

* * *

"And after the Jounin took our wounded, we just headed back to the village, were debriefed by the Hokage – who asked if I would be willing to teach my school to others- and I came back here.. home." Said Ranma, as soon as Ranma had arrived home Homura had literally pounced on him for information on where he'd been, who he'd been with, and could she expect grandchildren…. Ranma was fairly sure the last one had been a joke, she couldn't really regard him as a son could she?... although, she did treat him a lot like Kasumi did… Ranma couldn't know if the eldest Tendo's treatment of him was motherly or not, he had no memories of mothering.

Homura was gazing at him with a mixture of pride and disappointment… and Ranma was torn between grinning at her like an idiot and turning his face in shame.. "Ranma… did you really have bait Sasuke-san like that?" asked the elderly woman sternly, "Although, it is rather good that he learns that he has no chance of beating his brother until he finished maturing."

Ranma scratched his cheek, "Yeah…" Ranma looked unapologetically at Homura for a moment, "He got so much on my nerves, you know? All that crap about avenging.. And then playing in the spotlight like he was an all important super-star or some crap like that." Ranma frowned and a bit of anger flickered in his eyes. "If he's going to have revenge, why didn't he wait until he's ready? Especially when he knows how many techniques that his brother knows.." Ranma leant back in the chair and folded his arms. "I mean, sure, Ryoga was a pretty decent Avenger.. While he did challenge me every time he saw me.. He didn't challenge me when he had an imperfect technique… he'd stay away until he was ready… and I'd be damned if he didn't beat me a couple of times with those techniques." Ranma shrugged finally, shelving the thoughts for later processing.

The elderly woman looked at him silently, almost long enough for him to begin to squirm in his seat. "If you thought it needed to be done… for his sake not yours." Homura said finally.

Ranma nodded quickly and Homura smiled a little, only to laugh at his next words. Well.. I won't say I didn't enjoy knocking him out cold…"

"Silly boy." Homura said chidingly as she swatted the back of his head gently. "Anyway… It's time for bed.. Now scram!" ordered the matriarch commandingly, Ranma chortled amusedly and delayed long enough to dodge another light smack across the back of his head before leaving to sleep.

* * *

Shikamaru's thoughts were racing, sometimes being a smart guy sucked, and other times? It was worse. Ranma was a good fighter, his Chakra control was a little unorthodox, but it was tightly under the young mans control. He was at his peak, just out of his growth spurts and unlikely to grow much more, this would leave him as a medium sized adult. He also had mastered his body to Jounin level, Shikamaru's mind immediately jumped sideways and realized that the majority of Jounin reached their rank between sixteen and twenty… So Ranma was technically Jounin material… but he hadn't even known about the existence of Chakra until he arrived in Konoha… so his learning curve was impressive as well, not quite at the stage of a Sharingan… but the Chuunin had little doubt that Ranma would be able to defeat Sasuke another dozen times at least before the Uchiha learnt enough to give Ranma a fight for his money.

"Good Morning Ranma." Said the Chuunin suddenly, Ranma looked sideways at him with no surprise on his face. Shikamaru immediately raised Ranma's ability at detection up a few notches in his mental list. "Enjoy your sleep?" Shikamaru estimated that there was about an eighty percent chance that Ranma would become friendly with only a little effort on the Chuunin's part… a little enquiry to his face, check up what he's doing every know and then… and Ranma would be grateful… Like Naruto was to his teammates… and then Shikamaru would have an ally to take up a little of the work, which of course would leave more time for the genius to watch clouds.

Ranma nodded and smiled, "Morning Shikamaru, I did sleep rather well.." The pigtailed young man mentally reviewed a list of things he could say and settled on one quickly, "Did you manage to get enough sleep last night?" Ranma placed an enquiring expression on his face as he spoke, it wasn't the best curious look, but it wouldn't be good for his cause if he did a very curious look anyway.

"Almost, Mom woke me up too early though." Shikamaru declared grouchily. Ranma seemed to be working to plan well enough, but he was making unexpected overtures back to the younger boy…they were friendly, and honest enough.. But it was more like the man had been advised that doing it was a good idea. "Want to grab a snack to eat? My shout." Asked Shikamaru after a moment, judging by the fact Ranma had taken the last bite out of a morsel of food as he had exited the gates of Homura's residence it was unlikely that Ranma would be hungry.. But if Shikamaru's hunch was correct, Ranma would accept anyway, proving that like Chouji's clan, Ranma knew the secret to being able to use great amounts of energy lay in having a large or at least plentiful store of energy.

Ranma rubbed his jaw for a moment, he wasn't really hungry… but a snack.. Well, that was important… food was energy and energy was stuff he could use to get in better shape and become stronger which meant he could get more food and continue the cycle… "Yeah, nothing much though.." muttered Ranma as if not being able to eat two meals in a half hour's period was a near crime. As they started walking down the main street, where Ranma would have passed on his way to the training area and his teammates in half an hour, Ranma's mind wandered momentarily before immediately fastening onto something very dear to Ranma's heart. "Shikamaru, how do I go about asking to learn new techniques?"

Shikamaru smiled, his theory was correct, Ranma knew, which meant that it wouldn't be hard at all to get him friendly with Chouji- merely mentioning that chouji's clan used their eating to fuel their combat would bring Ranma's attention where he wanted it, directly to contacting and most likely helping Chouji. "Beef Jerky?" Shikamaru asked suddenly, Ranma nodded and the shorter boy approached the vendor and bought a dozen strips. Handing over half Shikamaru chewed on one thoughtfully. "I'll be blunt." Started the lazy man. "I want to see you in action again, I'm a Chuunin, and I don't doubt that I'll be selecting people for missions again… I want a decent idea of how good you are in all area's so that I can decide efficiently." And also, if he knew more of Ranma, he'd know if he could be as unsuitable as Naruto- not that the blond haired boy wasn't a supreme fighter in a pinch, but he was unsuited for stealth or finesse, he'd be more useful in large scale combat than a pinpoint attack… especially when you considered the boy's most used technique was a mass duplication device.

Ranma's mind spun, Shikamaru judged him as a good fighter already, at least good enough tot take notice of and wanted more information on him to fill mission requirements… Ranma was fine with that, but there was a chance that he was initiating close relation information gathering....not a large chance, but that had to be noted, as did the possibility that Ranma would be requested to teach others again, there was no chance that Shikamaru knew that Ranma had been asked merely the day before, by the Hokage no less, to teach… although Ranma had put it off, he wasn't sure if he was up to it and wanted some guinea pigs (his team mates) although that had been left unmentioned. "I suppose… What are you thinking of for demonstration purposes?"

"A mock combat simulation between a few teams, all with blunted weapons of course." Started Shikamaru, he had no intention of actually doing any work, but he'd persuaded his teacher to ask Ibiki about doing the exercise. "There would be a Jounin team and two Genin teams." Kiba, Hinata and Shino were in good condition, although Kiba was a little worn for wear… Sakura and Naruto were fine, although Sasuke would most likely be in the hospital or unavailable due to his almost missing Nin status… and Chouji was too hurt and tired to participate, leaving him and Ino of his team available.. Shikamaru intended on putting Ino with Naruto and Sakura-then watch the sparks fly- while he observed the entire exercise. The third team would be Kakashi, Gai and Ibiki… it would make an interesting combat situation, especially when there were so many rivals… when comparing the two Genin Teams, at first glance they appeared to be vastly mismatched.. but if Sakura and Ino could work together well enough, Naruto's vast combat ability would hold the team equal or just slightly superior to the other team, which had much more team work… but two members of it were already proven to be incapable of defeating Naruto on their own… Hinata wasn't a good a fighter as Neji, and Kiba had been defeated before Naruto's major power boost between the prelims and the third exam. "The Jounin team will support the other two teams against you… but will stay impartial if you're defeated and it comes down to a fight between the other two Genin Teams." Shikamaru suddenly placed his hands in a circle, as he ignored Ranma's surprised glance he thought about adding other people to the mix… Lee and TenTen could do with a workout, if they hadn't been sent on a mission already.

Ranma nodded with a smile, he'd have to check with his team-mates before he jumped into this… but it sounded interesting already. "I'll do it if my team says ok." Ranma declared with a friendly grin.

"Excellent." Shikamaru said with a lazy smile.

Ranma nodded and then looked up at the morning sun. "I need to go meet with my team… I'm running a bit late..."

Shikamaru nodded, "Enjoy Ranma, if you can get back to me by midday, I should be able to organize this by afternoon." Ranma nodded and bounced off immediately, turning away Shikamaru yawned and cursed at himself, "Stupid Chuuninism, making me do all this work to check out how good everyone is."

* * *

Authors Note: Wow! Another chapter so fast… I didn't want another battle this chapter… but I pushed the story too far forward too fast… and unless I wanted to add more to the earlier stage (which I didn't) I didn't have much of a choice… until inspiration struck and I attacked quickly by writing some stuff from Shikamaru's genius view… if its ooc? Stfu! Just cause I'm a dumbass and can't write a genius point of view… leave me alone 

Many many thanks to those who have reviewed my stories, all of you mean a lot to me. :D

At this point, there are sixty-seven lovely reviews attached to my pretty little story :D drools fifty a few days ago… a hundred in a few more days… and after that…. I WILL RULE THE WORLD!!!

On other notes. opens up the review page Katie, My apologies for the Choppiness.. it won't be any better in this chapter either.. I'm hoping to tell almost an entire exercise in a more coherent fashion next chapter.

Saa dsf, I don't plan on any matchups…I've not seen many stories that start out with a person in mind ever do anything well with them except push them into OOCness… I've got enough problems keeping IC as is.

Ghostdraconi- Ranma isn't as strong as the servant of Orochimeru is making him out to be in the committee, you may have noticed at least two members of the committee know that, as to Ranma's advice, they are more to spur Lee onto greater heights than to change anything immediately.. the changes will happen down the road though, especially when you consider that Lee's ability to heal the damage the gates cause while having them open to allow more power through....

Craw- I was going to wait.. except I got carried away and attacked!

Maximara, Ranma's curse still exists, but creating Chakra out of Saffron's Chi has allowed a temporary reprieve from its effects.. how long that will last? I'm not sure yet.

Edit- Just fixed up the paragraphs a little according to one of my reviewers (thanks) and added a few words here and there, nothing important.


	7. Chapter Six

Chapter Six – Mock Combat, Right?

* * *

"Morning Ranma-kun." Chorused Naoko and Hikari, Ranma froze mid leap and shuddered before he landed and skidded a foot or so. That was entirely too freaky.

"Good Morning, Naoko, Hikari…" Ranma mumbled, "Is Ibiki-sensei here yet?"

Naoko nodded, "He's been and gone… he said we'd be doing blunt weapons practice against three other teams this afternoon…" Naoko was obviously looking forward to this.

Hikari nodded quickly, "This will be a great chance to show them out teamwork.."

Ranma sweat dropped... Although they had managed to get the bells, it hadn't been due to high levels of teamwork, just their ability to carry out a plan successfully. "Our Teamwork isn't all that high." Ranma mumbled, he really didn't want to do this.

"What do you mean, Ranma?" asked Naoko as her eye twitched

"Yes, Ranma, do tell us." Asked Hikari coolly before Naoko had even finished speaking..

"Well, in the middle of a fight, we wouldn't have time to tell each other the plan.. We won because we all followed a preset plan that had a good chance of success.." Ranma cringed momentarily, expecting something to happen, but nothing did, the two girls were nodding their head. "And so while we succeeded due to teamwork, our teamwork wasn't really high... if Ibiki hadn't forgotten about searching your presence while fighting me, we would have had to change our plans on the run… and we couldn't have done that quickly enough to keep up with a Jounin, or even another Genin team who has been working together for a while."

Naoko sagged back "You're right, but what can we do about that this morning?"

Hikari nodded, "Is there enough time to do anything that won't leave us exhausted for this afternoon?"

Ranma nodded, "We can play games… stuff like juggling between three people or we do something like play Go, where the three of us against someone else in one game, and each of us takes a turn and has to anticipate not only your enemy, but the other people on your side." There was some other exercises, such as tying everyone together for a while, but that wouldn't be useful in short term, especially between two girls and a guy.

Hikari suddenly looked up, "I've got it, we'll go hunting as a team, we spread out and find a target while maintaining communication, we then encircle and strike… and after that we can have morning tea and then do something else… maybe tell each other about our pasts?" Hikari smiled devilishly at Ranma who immediately became very nervous indeed.

Naoko jumped to her feet, "Excellent! Let's do the past thing first though!" Said the Genin happily, her dark brown hair bouncing as she pushed herself up on the very tips of her toes in excitement.

"I think we can do the hunting exercise." Ranma blurted quickly, he really didn't want to do that other exercise at all... but a long forgotten quote came to mind. '_If you don't want to do something, find out why, and if that why isn't because it won't help you... do it.' _Sighing Ranma caved in to inevitability, "and we can do the other thing later if you really want to."

* * *

"Call." Whispered Naoko into the microphone, throughout the exercises so far, Naoko had emerged as the teams' leader, although two years younger than Ranma, her group commands were quite good.

"Ready."

"Ready."

"Go." Barked the black haired girl as she dashed forward towards their target. Ranma and Hikari reacted instantly to Naoko's call and also sprinted from their positions, the target, a young orphaned wild pig, squealed and ran to escape. Seeing Ranma approaching the pig turned and ran the other way where it saw an incoming Naoko, dashing to its left it squealed in victory only to be lifted into the air by Hikari.

"Score!" cheered Hikari, Naoko grinned at her, this was the fourth pig they'd caught, during the Sand village's attack, a pig farm's pen had burst open, there was currently about fifty of the immature little swine running around causing havoc, but due to the shortness of personnel they hadn't yet been rounded up. After giving the pig to Ranma, who had shown a disturbing pleasure in putting the small swine into a burlap bag and carrying them around, Hikari took out the book and wrote the ear tag number down carefully… the team would get a bonus for picking up the pigs, not much, only a few dollars for each pig.. But that was enough for a meal at one of the ramen stands or something similar.

"It's midmorning." Naoko declared as Ranma started looking around to add more pigs to his burlap sack.

Ranma sighed theatrically, "No more pigs?" asked the pigtailed man dejectedly.

"No, but your going to have to tell us about why you hate little pigs so much." Hikari butted in, "I mean, their so cute? How can you hate them…? I just wanted to cuddle that last one... it was so cute."

Ranma's left eye twitched, and then it twitched again before launching into a series of shudders and blinks as the words slowly penetrated his mind. "It's really embarrassing and a little dishonourable… I'd rather not tell you..." Ranma suddenly recalled something, he had made that promise to the next door's dog... not the pig… and it wasn't like he'd likely ever meet Ryoga again… and perhaps it might be a good idea to show that he made mistakes too, they hadn't seen any of his big ones, and one of his mistakes would surely come and bite him on the ass sooner or later. Besides, they were giving him the puppy dog eyes… "If you really, really, can't live without knowing however. I could tell you about it... but you won't like it."

Hikari laughed, "Of course we'll like it, and it can't be that bad!"

"A guy I know was cursed to turn into a pig every time he was splashed with cold water…" Ranma started as the trio began walking back to the main gates.

"Cursed?" Naoko said curiously, "What type of curse? And how can it turn someone into a pig?"

Ranma scratched the back of his head uncomfortably, this would be a little awkward to explain, they had no magic here. "Kind of like a seal that changes someone's shape and appearance when activated?" Ranma hazarded.

Naoko and Hikari nodded slowly "There's a high level Jutsu which can do that." Said Hikari quietly, "It's Jounin level though…"

Ranma nodded interested in this technique, but soon tucked it away for later use. "Well, he didn't want this curse on him right? And it was kind of my fault he got it… and so every time he'd get splashed with water, he'd turn into a little cute pig with a bandanna wrapped around him..."

Naoko frowned, "So what's so horrible about that?" the girl shrugged her shoulders, "It's not like he was sleeping with your wife or something…"

Ranma sweat dropped immediately. "Uh, actually... He was sleeping with my fiancée while a pig… and because of a promise I gave to him, I couldn't tell her outright."

Hikari's jaw dropped "You… you bastard!" she screeched and tried to slap Ranma, only to be stopped as Naoko grabbed her arm.

"There's got to be more to this Ranma… Tell." Ordered the girl calmly.

"Yeah, I used to call him P-chan in front of her, which was what she called his pig form, and he used to use the stuff she told the pig against me." Ranma sighed and Hikari blushed and looked away in embarrassment. "It didn't help that she saw anything and everything I did as being perverted, so she automatically disbelieved anything I said." Ranma shrugged, "And the guy used to attack me all the time, and she's always hit me when I defeated him…saying I shouldn't…" Ranma narrowed his eyes and made his best impression of Akane's voice. "Pick on poor Ryoga-kun!"

Hikari's lips were trembling; she looked really embarrassed, "I'm sorry for assuming the worst Ranma… but you really should have told her." Finished the brown haired girl in a sharper tone of voice.

Ranma nodded, "Yeah, hindsight's always twenty/twenty… but if I could change the past, I'd get rid of my curse first."

Naoko moved closer and looked eagerly at him. "What curse do you have?" she asked as they walked into the shadow of the main gates of Konoha.

"It hasn't worked since I got here," mumbled Ranma, "so I'm not telling… It's ten times more embarrassing and worse than that." Finished the young man with a growl.

Hikari and Naoko looked doubtful, but Ranma wasn't going to say another word… so when they arrived at Hikari's place, Hikari invited them in for some food.

"Uh..." Ranma hedged quickly, he couldn't enter a girl's house…

"Come on Ranma." Naoko immediately grumbled, "It's not like your going in her room or anything…" Ranma nodded unsurely, he hadn't ever really been in many houses before… he'd been dojo and temples galore… but the houses he'd been in were mostly mansions or places he assaulted, like Kirin's tower, Saffron's mountain or even the Kuno estate. Ranma shrugged and walked inside cautiously. "See Ranma, not so hard." Said Naoko as she pushed past the pigtailed man to raid the kitchen.

* * *

"G..G..Good morning Naruto-kun." Hinata said quietly, a small blush was present on her face as she edged towards the hyperactive boy while carefully not looking at his face.

Naruto turned around and smiled at Hinata blissfully, "Hey Hey Hinata…" the boy's smile dimmed a bit as he added a little bit to the end. "Chan." Hinata cheeks grew redder and her fingers tapped together like mad as she smiled back at Naruto, who took her smile to mean she didn't object. "How're you today, Hinata-chan?"

Hinata cleared her throat before responding faintly. "I'm fine Naruto-kun…" taking hold of her courage with a great deal of willpower she looked up and stared at his eyes, which were currently flicking around aimlessly until he noticed she was looking at him, they immediately fastened onto her gaze for before his customary grin dissolved into a heartfelt smile. "Umm…" Hinata said while trying to think of anything to say. "I hope we don't have to fight each other during the practice fight..."

Naruto nodded, "That would suck… but isn't it our teams going against Ranma's team or something?" that would make the fight a little awkward…but not impossible.

"Yes…" Hinata finally looked away, the rest of her team was here, Kiba was speaking to Shino about something, while glancing over at Naruto occasionally… Shikamaru was here as well, but he was the only person out of his team - Chouji was still in hospital, and Ino hadn't shown. Of Naruto's team only Naruto was there at the meeting place, Lee and TenTen had arrived too. Counting up the numbers, Hinata realized there were seven people, one of the teams would have an extra member, or Shikamaru was planning on watching the entire exercise. "I think you'll join Lee and Tenten's team for the exercise…" Hinata decided out loud, "Shikamaru will probably watch everyone fight."

Naruto nodded, Shikamaru had organized the entire thing, he would want to sit it out and watch carefully. "Fuzzy eyebrows is really good…" he hadn't been able to defeat Gaara, but the boy had done more damage with fewer resources than the other ninja's had at their command… "Tenten got knocked out pretty quick…" Naruto continued as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"I think she had bad luck..." Hinata said suddenly, Naruto looked at her and smiled tentatively, as if urging her to elaborate... so she did. "The sand ninja was really good at defence against ranged attacks… all the sand ninja were." Naruto nodded at Hinata and she blushed a little as she realized that all of the boy's attention was focussed on her words. "She'll do much better against someone who doesn't have that sort of defence."

Naruto nodded and was about to reply when Shikamaru called them over. As everyone assembled Shikamaru tapped his fingers as if counting. "Teams will be Tenten, Rock Lee and Naruto in team one, team two will consist of Kiba, Shino and Hinata." Shikamaru glanced around, they were at a bridge, which happened to be team seven's normal meeting spot. "The Jounin are already here, and prepared, they will aid your two teams against Team Three, not so much against the girls, but very much against Ranma… most of us have seen what he can do, if you attack him at all costs do not follow if he is merely dodging… that technique he used on Sasuke is dependant on your losing your cool, so watch it." Rubbing his chin Shikamaru decided on adding a few more words. "Remember, the exercise finishes when one of three Genin teams is left victorious…watch out if your ally is going to stab you in the back."

Nodding quickly Shikamaru crouched down to a large box beside him and tapped the sides twice while continuing looking at everyone. "We will be using the weapons in this box, so make sure to replace all of your sharp weapons with these." Opening the box Shikamaru tossed a kunai at Naruto, who caught it absently, the kunai had a soft rubber blunt blade with something heavier inside, while the handle and grip remained metal.

A whistle pierced the air as they took their new weapons, "Here they come." Warned Shikamaru.

* * *

Some of the things had been damned embarrassing, and some had been nearly as bad. The girls didn't really seem to hold him in super high regard anymore, and while on one level Ranma was thankful, on another it hurt a little bit. Naoko seemed more okay with him than Hikari though…while both girls had told some embarrassing things, they'd held back more than Ranma did. "Ready?" Ranma asked them both

Hikari and Naoko fingered the rubber tipped kunai's for a moment before nodding. "The plan is, Ranma heads in, checks it out.. If they have already started and are laying in ambush then he repositions to aid us as we strike the ambush."

"We also should have Bunshin's accompany Ranma." Hikari added, Naoko nodded and the two girls preformed the technique, grinning Ranma left the house and started to jog to the meeting ground, the two bunshins followed him closely while the girl's roof jumped along side him.

Approaching the meeting Area Ranma wasn't surprised when only Shikamaru was sitting there. "Hey Shikamaru, I guess we've started already then?" said Ranma calmly.

Shikamaru shook his head, "No, we're not at the training ground yet. Come on." Ranma frowned at Shikamaru who had started jogging quickly. As Ranma moved from the spot a horde of throwing kunai and shuriken sped towards him, frowning Ranma leant backwards until his head was on the ground behind him, the weapons flew above him and skidded along the ground to his left, sighing Ranma stood back up and yawned, the two bunshins behind him took combat stances and stepped back a few paces.

Ranma lashed out and dealt a blow to the side of Shikamaru's head, Shikamaru flew a half dozen metres before landing and exploding into a puff of smoke, when the smoke cleared nothing was left. "Kage Bunshin and a Henge, Naruto is a specialist in shadow clones." Murmured Hikari's bunshin. Ranma nodded silently.

Crouching Ranma scanned the surrounding area, his two team-mates were both off to his left, and Ranma decided to consolidate their forces somewhat and move closer to them. Sprinting off the bridge and into a copse of trees Ranma ran almost smack bang into a Genin, it was a short haired girl with the palest blue eyes Ranma had ever seen. Taken off guard Ranma forgot to defend and the girl struck Ranma once in the stomach and ran, vanishing into the trees. "Shit." Ranma growled, that strike, had hurt far more than it should have, it was almost as bad as Ryu Komon's Yamasenken attacks… the only difference was, that the flesh did not seem to be torn.

"Shit, that was Hinata, she's of the Hyuuga clan, the Hyuuga's hand to hand combat style causes internal damage.. While causing barely any external damage." Ranma nodded at Hikari's explanation, silently vowing to knock the girl out as soon as possible next time he saw her.

"We will stay apart from you until you're attacked again." Naoko said suddenly, Ranma frowned at the bunshin for a moment until he realized they were speaking for the originals, who were elsewhere already. Nodding quickly Ranma asked the bunshin if they had located anyone yet. Naoko nodded, "Yes, we have the rest of the hyuuga girls' team over here."

Ranma nodded and started running, the two clones quickly caught up and flanked him during his quick dash, making sure not to be caught off guard again Ranma extended his senses out as far as possible, smirking he noticed and avoided the traps the enemy team had placed around them. Staying along on the ground, Ranma used his sheer speed to set off all the traps and avoid damage, within seconds he heard his enemies' communication and before he knew it, he was in the clearing with them.

Arrayed across the clearing was the hyuuga girl, two identical boys on all fours, and a third boy whose skin seemed to be covered in a series of black moving lines. Ignoring the rest of the team, Ranma engaged the twins immediately while the bunshins distracted the rest. Striking out quickly Ranma was almost caught off guard by the sheer speed and ferocity of the twins attacks, their looks were disconcerting, as if they were part dog… shrugging his concerns off Ranma moved quicker to compensate for the numeric advantage, dodging swipes of their claw-like hands the pigtailed man concentrated on one of the two and immediately attacked full out, sending the boy flying before the other twin even got a chance to move.

Sparing a glance over his shoulder, Ranma frowned when the white eyed girl preformed an odd technique around her eyes. The eyes and arteries around them, bulged as the technique slid into place. Ranma had a sinking feeling that it would allow her to see through the bunshins. The girl's head turned as Ranma dodged a few blows and she called out to her team-mates, they immediately ignored the insubstantial bunshins and attacked Ranma. Smiling Ranma twisted between the blow of the recently returned twin and his compatriot as he prepared to trigger the trap.

Suddenly disengaging from combat with the dog twins Ranma attacked the boy wearing sunglasses and a high collared jacket. As the two twins attacked Ranma again, the young man allowed himself to be hit solidly, as he jumped back into the fray Ranma struck quickly between the three boys, the combatants jumped backwards and gave themselves space when Hikari's original plan came into effect and the Hyuuga girl somehow managed to dodge the rubber kunai coming her way with aid. Tracing the path that the aid had come from Ranma spotted one of the Jounin in a tree, if Ranma recalled correctly his name was Gai or something like that. Deciding to ignore him, Ranma attacked the white jacket boy, and sent him flying away from the combat zone and especially away from the Hyuuga.

Frowning simultaneously Hikari and Naoko launched another attack, however the aid from the Jounin combined with Hinata's active Byakugan forced a change in plan. Dashing around the battle area the two female Genin's attacked the group fighting with Ranma. Akamaru and Kiba both dodged the kunai, however Shino took two kunai to his back, rendering him 'dead' for the exercise. Ranma jumped out of the melee, the objective had been completed for now and if they took any longer they'd risk another complete team or the Jounin interfering.

As Ranma leapt out of the clearing via a few well placed branches, he ran into the Hyuuga girl again. This time Ranma managed to not be surprised and hit her square on the jaw, sending her flying back into a tree where a cloud of smoke obscured her momentarily before the red eyed female Jounin appeared. Smirking the pigtailed boy left without fighting more, it wasn't part of the mission.

Hikari and Naoko nodded to Ranma as they flashed each other a hand-signal. "I saw you hit Hinata again, but wasn't she with the others?" Naoko asked quickly.

"It was someone using a Henge Jutsu, one of the Jounin." Ranma said with a shrug, "She scampered when the Henge dissipated though."

"So as long as they're in henge, they'll attack lightly? What do you think Naoko?" Hikari asked with a grim look. Naoko nodded silently while Hikari began to a little nervous. "Watch out Ranma, they could act as one of us."

Ranma nodded, they should have thought up a plan before the situation but it was too late now. "Lets go, we need to find the other team." Muttered the pigtailed young man before anyone else could speak, the two girls nodded and they leapt away.

* * *

"Shit." Growled Kiba angrily. "Shino's out…"

Hinata shrugged a little. "And they've left, probably to seek out, "her voice faded out a little, "Naruto-kun's team."

Kiba nodded, "I don't think we have much of a chance to win now unless we ally with team B and betray them later…" glancing at his pet dog, he smacked him lightly across the back of the head, "Akamaru! Don't lick yourself like that when your looking like me!" growled the boy suddenly while blushing.

Hinata was blushing too, she hadn't known that Kiba was that flexible - even if it was only the half beast clone - it did take after Kiba himself. "Should we go?" she asked quietly, Kiba nodded and they both bounded into the trees to render aid to the second team.

* * *

"Come on… Come on." Naruto growled, waiting like this really wasn't his thing. Although the plan they had come up was pretty good. Naruto would stay in the open, and challenge them with aid of his shadow clones while suggesting that he'd been abandoned by his team-mates for not cooperating and then when they fought Tenten and Lee would attack from behind.

Of course, Naruto knew Lee would never do that- he was too similar to the blond haired boy to ever abandon a friend- but the girls and Ranma didn't know him that well and so the plan should still be viable.

"Come on…. WHERE ARRRREEE YOU DAMMIT!" Naruto howled in frustration. "COME FIGHT ME ALREADY!"

* * *

Ranma blinked.

Naoko blinked.

Hikari smirked a little and changed the direction of her leaps towards the newly located prey. "It's a trap, so let's spring it." The girl said with an evil grin.

Ranma shrugged and overtook Hikari quickly; he was the most experienced in ambushes after all - The fact that she was a girl and walking into danger had nothing to do with it, really. Naoko caught up to Hikari and the two girls smirked at each other as Ranma bounded along in front of them.

As the Trio approached the next clearing, Ranma moved forward and away from the others as they slowed and took hiding spots. Ahead stood Naruto who was in a loose and unorthodox battle stance, frowning Ranma upped his belief of Naruto's combat skills – the boy was standing in a position quite like his own father had when trying to underplay his skill.

"Ready to get your ass kicked?" Asked Naruto arrogantly, Ranma smirked at the smaller boy and flipped him the finger. As if Naruto stood a chance against him. Naruto smirked and began with his trademark Jutsu. Watching closely Ranma memorised the seals, they'd no doubt come in handy later when it was his turn to learn the technique.

A dozen shadow clones stood around him, smirking slightly Naruto's eyes took on the vacant look which characterized the micromanagement of the clones. Leaping forward smoothly the group attacked Ranma who immediately took to the air, his smirk growing wider Naruto performed the technique again and used his own clones to give him the ability to 'stand' nearly equal to Ranma, who was dependent on blows to keep him aloft.

Ranma had to hand it to the boy; standing on his clones shoulders to get a stable platform to fight him off was a brilliant idea, but it was not brilliant enough to defeat a Saotome. Using a hasty block Ranma pushed himself up off Naruto's arm to directly above the boy and allowed his full weight to come down upon the boy, crushing him and the clone beneath him.

Four clones down, merely twenty-five to go.

* * *

Naoko took a moment to smirk from her hiding place; Ranma had taken down a few more clones and was well on his way to winning. Grinning at her team mate they both stood up circle the clearing, neither of the two girls truly expected that Naruto would be left alone, he was too wild and would make an excellent distraction even if he refused to help the team.

Leaping silently along the treetops Hikari froze as a chill ran down her back. Crouching suddenly a thrown kunai flew above her head but that did not stop the foot impacting on her from knocking her unconscious. Her last sight was of Naoko rushing to aid her.

Naoko swore and drew in a breath to warn or call Ranma of Hikari's ambush when a piece of cloth was held in front of her face. As she fell unconscious from the drugs the girl glared at the four people who'd taken the two girls out with horrid ease.

* * *

Hitting the last of the Naruto clones Ranma swore loudly as it too dissolved into smoke, revealing that the original boy had left sometime during the fight. Ranma's thoughts left the fled ninja and moved towards his own team. Bouncing back to the insertion point of the clearing Ranma soon found traces of his team mates, following them cautiously he scowled as a third pair of footprints joined the trail. Moving slower he luckily saw a small set of knuckle-busters… they were Naoko's and her indicator that she could not fight anymore.

"Ambushed." Murmured Ranma. This left the question of if Hikari was still out there or not. Looking around Ranma could detect barely any footprints, not enough to show a battle in any case. The ambush must have been over nearly before it began… Frowning Ranma idly wondered what had been going through those girl's minds, overconfidence due to their success so far? It didn't really matter. It was just the difference between them and him.

Moving silently Ranma pulled out the big guns, he wouldn't lose here. He'd defeated kirrin, and Herb, and Toma. He'd killed Saffron, a demi-god at the least and he would not lose here. Letting his aura out Ranma sighed as his ego filled the air, invisibly pressing against everything in the area, Ranma's eyes fell dull as his mind concentrated on processing and interpreting the information his aura provided. After a moment he scowled again, couldn't those girls do anything right? Moving to another tree branch Ranma crouched and looked at the ground as he reined his aura in again. Two pairs of footprints, one Hikari's, heavier and smudged at the front as she'd collapsed and slid before being supported by the second person. Shrugging Ranma dismissed any chances of being able to rescue his team; they were 'dead' for the purpose of this game. But all was not lost; his 'team' could pull of a victory yet.

Stretching his muscles Ranma prepared himself for a quick chase and fight. Leaping away along the trail the enemy had thoughtfully left behind Ranma quickly caught up to the team ahead. Silently the martial artist now ninja assessed the group. The dog boy twins were there, as well as the freaky eyed girl from the first fight. Also there was a girl and Rock Lee.

Narrowing his eyes Ranma began to consider when the freaky eyed girl gasped and spun around towards Ranma's position. Dashing forward Ranma's respect rose slightly when she managed to block two blows in his first sally. As the others rushed towards him Ranma smirked and focussed chi into his fingers before tapping the girl's rib roughly staggering her momentarily before the attack did its work, forcing her to her knees and then falling to the ground as fresh blood stopped flowing to her mind just long enough for her to be forced into unconsciousness.

Whirling back to face his other enraged attackers Ranma dashed forward pumping chi into his legs and an arm to hit Lee with an open handed strike, sending the young Genin flying high in an arc away through tree and bracken. Smirking to himself in the giddiness of success Ranma picked out his next target, the girl of about Lee's age with her hair up in buns. As he dashed towards her he was surprised to find that the girl dodged backwards and away from him before he even got half way towards her. A moment later this made sense as she launched into a series of ranged attacks. Snorting with derision Ranma turned his back and launched himself at the two dog boy twins as the weapons sailed harmlessly past his previous position.

The two boys attacked Ranma wildly yet played for time, for either the return of Rock Lee or some other source of help. Glancing around during combat Ranma ignored the outraged looks on the boy's faces as he slide to the side dodging an attack from Naruto, who had just appeared out of nowhere.

Naruto looked furious, angrier than the two dog boys even. "I saw what you did to Hinata, and I don't like It." said the boy quietly but empathetically. Ranma smirked and glanced over to the girl, who was being set in a sitting position against a tree by a Jounin, the one with the hairstyle just like Lee's. Looking back at Naruto, Ranma decided to take the quiet route and simply raised an eyebrow in the standoff.

"Neji did an attack that looked exactly the same as that on her… it almost killed her." Naruto said acidly.

Ranma shrugged "Hurry up, I don't have all day." Said the pigtailed boy in a bored voice, as he intended the three boys attacked instantly, two kunai flew past him as they charged. Dodging each attack Ranma's smirk and bored attitude increased as he lead them around in circles. After nearly ten seconds the martial artist become ninja raised his fist triumphantly and smirked at the sudden look of surprise that covered the boys' faces for an indeterminate moment before they were launched into the sky.

As they left the ground Ranma again found himself under attack from the girl, smirking he lifted off the ground and moved into the whirlwind, deliberately feeding it more power with his confidence and irritation with his team-mates. The girl tried to attack again, but her ranged weapons were sent off course by the wind. Taking in the situation Ranma noticed their was a second Jounin on the ground and Rock Lee was being held back by her while the black haired Genin was moving towards them to regroup. Above him Naruto and the twins were falling down the centre of the technique. Allowing it to dispel Ranma dropped to the ground and was immediately set upon by Rock Lee - who while not using the heavenly gates - was fighting to the best of his capability.

"That was a low blow Ranma." Lee said as he blocked a barrage of attacks. Ranma shrugged and smirked as he blocked in turn, while Ranma didn't use any special techniques it was seeming like the boys were equally matched..

"To whom?" wondered the pigtailed boy suddenly; the remark through Lee off guard for a moment and Ranma swung forward using the chestnut fist to hit a dozen points on Lee's body at once. As the boy slipped into unconsciousness Ranma turned around to fight the last girl when he found his way blocked by the two Jounin.

"Before you win… you'll have to fight us first." Growled the man, Gai or something like that. Ranma shrugged, winning for him had never been easy and this was just another case of it. As the Jounin leapt forward in anticipation of a short battle Ranma dodged to the side to attack the second Jounin, who he'd correctly guessed to be weaker in hand to hand combat. After exchanging a few blows without result Ranma soon found himself to be blocking attack after attack as Gai rejoined the fight.

Getting desperate Ranma forced a visible layer of Chakra over his arm and hit Gai with it, who easily blocked the blow with his own Chakra covered hand. Frowning as his faltering confidence prevented his favourite attack Ranma instead used the katchu tenshin amagauriken to force both Jounin back a step. As this bolstered his confidence to its near normal levels Ranma forced his confident blue aura to surround his body, to his surprise Gai also did a near identical one although the other one... Kurenai did something else with orange Chakra instead.

Launching forward Ranma exchanged equal blows with Gai, each hit he or his opponent landed not causing enough damage to be noticeable in their state of mind and body. As Kurenai attacked Ranma backhanded her arm away, she scowled angrily and an angry red aura surrounded her as she attacked. This time Ranma was only just managing to hold them off when something hit the back of his head unexpectedly, spinning around Ranma lashed out with nearly the full power of his aura behind his fist hitting the black haired girl and sending her flying. A mental curse was the last thing that ran through the boy's mind as he was knocked into unconsciousness by two blows to the back of his head.

"This isn't so good."

"He gets more vicious than a spurned girl when he's loosing… That's freaky."

* * *

"He's worse than Naruto, Neji and Sasuke put together."

"What makes you think that Shikamaru?" asked Kurenai irritably as she looked over TenTen's shoulder, which was unfortunately dislocated.

"He was holding back, but every time he got into an untenable situation he'd let himself go a bit further until he could win." The Chuunin paused ominously as he considered his next words. "So far all his techniques have at worst been Semi-Lethal, even the technique used on Hinata only held a few seconds and he forced a fair bit of himself into that."

Gai looked over from where he was examining Kiba and Akamaru, "That's true, he wasn't using his aura against us much either, he was just using it to protect himself."

Kurenai looked surprised but pushed the girls shoulder back into place before speaking. "What do you mean? I thought body auras were supposed to automatically power up offence and defence." Asked the Jounin curiously.

Gai finished his examination of the last of the downed Genin and nodded to Hinata who was awake and looking Naruto over. "That's not quite true." Stated the Jounin quietly before moved next to stand beside Shikamaru. "As most people know, I'm the best when it comes to Aura's. Well, I was before Ranma turned up." Shikamaru nodded as Kurenai's eyes widened in surprise. "An Aura can be used however its user wants it to be, however more control is needed for everything you want it to do, theoretically you could gain so much control that the aura could be detached from the body and used as a large scale explosive weapon…" Gai shrugged, "I can focus more of my aura into defence or offence, which is why I can fight Kakashi to a draw despite his superior Jutsu."

Shikamaru rubbed his jaw, "So Ranma can focus his aura completely into his own body for defence yet keep it from moving to become offensive..."

Gai nodded. "You can use your aura for other things too, he used it for a burst of speed once or twice during the fight, and the hit that sent Rock Lee flying was him using it for extra strength."

Shikamaru's eyes widened. "The heavenly Gates are a method to let your aura completely loose and then to boost it as well." Gai nodded slowly. "It's most likely self destructive because of the fact that Lee doesn't have enough control to master it." Kurenai glanced at Gai who shrugged. "And so if Ranma was to learn it… he'd be stronger than… well, anyone." The chuunin looked at Gai steadily. "Don't Teach It To Him."

Kurenai also turned her eye onto the Jounin who backed away a little. "Come on.." begged the man. Their gazes didn't let up. "Okay Okay. I won't." muttered the Jounin grumpily.

"Hey Hey Hinata-Chan." Came a weak voice, Naruto was awake, first as usual, and that ended any chance of more conversation. At least any chance of intelligent conversation anyway.

* * *

OOC: I don't particularly like this chapter, for a few dozen sordid reasons that I won't tell you.  
But, The Corruption from the title did show in this chapter, and while going down mountain is a downward trip, chances are you'll hit a few peaks on the way down.

Thanks to especially Clow Angel who's several emails did prompt to actually get off my lazy rear and finish the chapter.

PS, Found out something interesting, on average, i write every day as much text as I get in reviews that day... thank god for people harrassing me on MSN or i'd never get anything done 


	8. Interlude

The Dojo stood empty.

A girl walked inside, carrying two dozen or so bricks, stacking them in piles she hits each pile, smashing them into pieces. As the girl finishes, she is covered in sweat and has a satisfied look on her face.

She leaves the dojo.

The Dojo stood empty

A while later, another girl comes in - this one older than the first but still a young woman – she cleans the dojo floor and leaves.

The Dojo stood empty

And so, the next day…

The cycle begins again.

* * *

Ranma was relaxing at the back of the house, it was so frustrating. His two team-mates were irritated with him for not giving in, the others were irritated for not winning and the Jounin were irritated with him for fighting at the level he did.

There were days you just couldn't win.

But... at least tomorrow could be different, right?

* * *

"Hey Chouji." Shikamaru said warmly as he entered the hospital room.

Chouji looked up from the small bowl of thin watery soup and grinned, "Hey Shikamaru." His face fell a little as he continued, "I'll be out in another day or two…"

Shikamaru smiled, "I'll be glad to have our strongest team member back." Seating himself next to the bed the Chuunin arranged himself for a leisurely stay. Normally he would have just settled in and let Chouji speak and nod occasionally where needed, but the rank and responsibility had coerced the young man to become slightly more active for his team-mates and even extending as far as almost all the people he knew.

"I'm allowed to eat as much as I want now…" Chouji said happily, "But it's only soup, and not much thick soups either…" finished the boy morosely.

Shikamaru smiled again, "You'll be out soon, besides… just think of what would happen if you ate something good now and could never eat a full meal again!"

Chouji laughed and the two close friends continued on.

* * *

Ohh, he was soooo irritated. Ranma had taken him out waaay to easily for this Genin's peace of mind.

Well.

He'd fix that.

Learn a new technique and kapow! That'd show him. But… but... What to learn? His Jounin leader wouldn't teach him(he was always teaching the other guy in the team), and that left only two people.

The old pervert

And

The old hag…

Grinning to himself manically the boy ran off to find someone and to browbeat them into teaching him a new technique.

* * *

Homura checked over the report again, for the fifth time. Ranma's actions were a little disturbing but there was little she could do at the moment, besides, most boys that age were impulsive and hated losing right?

* * *

He'd spent so long… looking back on it now, he'd sacrificed so much… and for what? He hadn't succeeded in what he'd set out to do. The lesson's he'd taught to himself and those taught by him hadn't helped in life… indeed they had even hindered him, stopped him from having relationships with people he'd wanted to have them with, stopped him from doing anything but train… was it all worth it? Was he strong enough?

No.

But it had to be, or almost his entire life had been worthless… and he couldn't admit that.

* * *

He was cute… and paid attention to her, just because she… was herself. When she spoke, he listened, he didn't agree straight out, in fact he outright dismissed her opinion a few times. But he did listen and he always did consider what she said, even if it was only to point the flaws out to him before dismissing it.

So, why couldn't she just tell him?

* * *

If he couldn't figure out how Ranma managed to send him flying with a single blow he'd figure out how Ranma made Hinata fall unconscious with a single touch! and if he couldn't figure out how Ranma made Hinata fall unconscious with a single touch, he'd figure out how Ranma tracked them so easily! and if he couldn't figure out how Ranma tracked them so easily he'd figure out how Ranma made the whirlwind just by raising his fist! and if he couldn't figure out how Ranma made the whirlwind just by raising his fist he'd figure out how Ranma had made his arms move so fast! and if he couldn't figure out how Ranma had made his arms move so fast he'd figure out how Ranma could see tenketsu without the Byakuugan! and if he couldn't figure out how Ranma could see tenketsu without the Byakuugan he'd….

Well… he'd give up and go do some practice. And maybe ask his teacher for a new fighting Kata! And if…

* * *

The boy used an Aura.

He had thought that would be impossible without learning to use Chakra – and he was the foremost expert so everyone else believed that too - but the boy's aura was so finely controlled that he must have been using it for years…maybe even as long as a decade. And this was well before he'd learnt to use chakra. So if the boy could do that without Chakra, maybe Lee could too.

* * *

"Stupid git."

"Totally."

"He should have surrendered, cut his losses… there was no"

"You're wrong."

"wha?"

The girl shook her head. "He could have won, easily... You know it took two Jounin to step in and then fight hand to hand to knock him out…"

The other girl shrugged. "No way, he was up against too many people to have won."

"Gai told me that it was blind luck they managed to knock him out in so short a time," the first girl said distantly. "He was expecting it to be a fight of attrition, half an hour or more…"

"Well..." the second girl hesitated. "Maybe we should go tell him he did well then?"

"Kind of..." the first girl smiled slyly. "Homura-san said he was sulking in the back yard."

"And just telling him he did well won't cheer him up." The second girl said with a roll of her eyes.

"But… discussing about how our plan went wrong and where we should have made a new one might not be a bad idea." Said the first girl with a sly look.

"And then we tell him he did well?"

* * *

"He did okay in the testing, he seemed pretty angry after his team-mates were knocked out and became quite vicious." Kurenai reported quietly.

Tsunade rubbed her jaw as she thought about that, "But do you think he would have abandoned the mission and admitted defeat if he thought there was no chance to win?" this was the most important question out of all the ones the hokage had prepared.

"I.. I'm not sure." The red eyed Jounin admitted sheepishly, everyone knew the one team wasn't meant to win… well, at least they knew once they had passed the test. "I almost think that he thought he wouldn't lose, despite his team-mates 'death.' But then, he did destroy that summon of Shusaku's right? And we only managed to knock him out because he made a stupid mistake."

Tsunade sighed, causing the so far silent third occupant to snort amusedly – causing both women to jump a little from Jiraiyia's forgotten presence. "Well, at least we know he'll try and complete the mission... You might want to consider adding a clause in all his missions to return after sustaining losses unless he and his surviving team-mates are sure that they can still succeed without further losses."

Tsunade nodded her head, the perverted man was correct there. And if his dedication to his mission was higher than his regard to his team's life… well, that'd protect them at least. Such a pity the mission had ended like it did. "Well, that'll work until we can be sure." pausing for a moment Tsunade considered conning Jiraiyia into taking over Naruto's entire team - it would indeed be beneficial to Naruto and Sasuke and quite likely for Sakura as well – but dismissed the idea abruptly, he would be far too hard to put up with afterwards, the same reason she hadn't slept with him again when they were younger. "There's a mission to remove a small band of racketeers in a village nearby, "Tsunade said as she leant back in her chair. "Normally this is a B rank mission, but as it is low risk and considering Ranma's exceptional fighting skills, Ibiki's team will be sent…. Kurenai, your team will be covering the two missions that they would have done."

Kurenai nodded as Tsunade dismissed them both.

* * *

AN: I didn't particulary want scene's 6 & 7 to acknowledge the person they were about, each one at least relates to two people… at least and one of them could refer to four people… come to think about it, I'm not sure who it does refer too… I was thinking about all of them when I wrote those OO

I don't think any of the scenes actually name the character their about (except for last one), but most of them should be pretty obvious.


	9. Chapter Seven

Authors Note: Everyone kiss/hug/worship Clow Angel who persuaded me that releasing more P&C would make a wonderful birthday present for her (coincidently, her birthday is on the 23rd of…. Uhh… march…2005..?…… hmmm this story is a little late. Well. A lot late… Really, Really, Really Late.

Perhaps I should Beg Clow Angel for forgiveness for being a horrible person?

* * *

Ranma yawned as he pulled himself out of bed; he'd been on a weird train of thought last night, depressed and contemplative of a few things – such as all of his upbringing. As the young man pulled himself over to the closet he quickly slid on a pair of loose black pants and a dark red shirt eerily reminiscent of his old long lost Chinese clothing.

Attaching the weapon sheathes and filling them Ranma shifted his posture a little as the comforting weight of his weapons settled upon the pigtailed man like a well worn cloak. As the young man finished his newer morning rituals he glanced in the mirror, eyes instinctively searching out the hidden and not hidden weapons on his body. As he left the room Ranma's nose guided him down to the kitchen where a meal was being cooked.

Beating his adoptive 'mother' to the fridge Ranma grabbed a dozen sausages and tossed them into a frying pan before sitting it on the stove, next to a larger frying pan filled with pancakes. Using a bit of Chakra Ranma heated the pan quickly and the flames below it flickered out the sides as he concentrated on them.

"Not like that Ranma." Homura said testily, "Make the flames burn hotter without making them bigger." Ranma grinned at her before turning to glare at the unfortunate stove. The flames shrunk quickly and changed colour to give a bluish tinge to their bases. Nodding appreciatively Homura smiled at Ranma who was too busy concentrating to notice her praise. "So, getting a mission today?" Homura asked quietly.

Ranma started a little and grinned at her before turning his attention back to the slowly cooking food. "Yeah, we go up and find out what it is in an hour or so."

"Make sure to pack beforehand, just in case it's a longer mission." Homura warned her charge warmly, in her youth she had been caught out a few times and it was more than a little embarrassing. "I'll take care of this if you want to do it now, Ranma."

Ranma rubbed his chin and nodded, dashing upstairs and out of shouting range before she could remind him not to run inside again.

* * *

"Team Eighteen," began Tsunade, "Will be doing a C level mission, moving to the village of Konomehe near our western border and either chasing off or eliminating a group called 'The Bloody Hands.'"

Ranma blinked, surely no one would be stupid enough to try and do something to citizens protected by a hidden village would they? But it seemed so, for the Hokage continued on unaware of Ranma's lack of concentration.

"Ibiki, you can decide the most effective manner of dispersing this group." Tsunade spoke coldly as she addressed the Jounin. Ranma scratched his chin idly, he really didn't know why the Hokage bothered to hand out all the missions her self, especially as nine times out of ten the team Jounin would give another briefing afterwards.

"Team dismissed." Tsunade said with a small smile, as the team left one of the committee members entered the room and approached the Hokage.

"Ahh, Hokage-sama, I was just wondering, would team eighteen be available for" the man stopped as Tsunade waved her hand.

"They've just left on a mission, sorry Koharu-san." The man didn't look too displeased and left with a hidden smile gracing his face… It seemed the other guy had already played his hand.

* * *

"Good Morning." Spoke a cool voice behind him. Rock Lee, Green Beast of the Leaf, spun around away from the window and mock glared at Neji. "You look better today." Stated the white eyed boy affably after a glance out of the hospital window.

"Yatta!" Declared Lee with a pose, broken by a small wince as he straightened back into a standing position, "And so do you! Your walking now, you'll be back with us in no time!"

Neji smiled lightly, most likely the nurses and Hokage-sama would also be happy that Rock Lee was not hanging around. "It will indeed be good when we are both fighting together."

Lee smiled. "Ah! The flaming passions of youth shine through your cool words!" Lee grinned at Neji and gave him thumbs up gesture.

Neji looked at his team mate and fellow wounded shinobi for a moment, then he smiled slightly and turned to stare out the window.

After another moment, Lee turned to look contemplatively out the window too.

* * *

As Ranma grabbed his bag of supplies and stuff he silently wondered how Homura had known he'd be called for a multi day mission. Shrugging off his curiosity, the pigtailed teen grabbed a couple of extra Kunai and tossed them into the bag, at worst they'd be lost with the bag but they could come in hand if he lost the ones on him.

Trotting steadily out the door Ranma kicked the gate shut behind him, a huge wooden boom echoed in the midmorning air as he dashed towards the river at more than a steady jog. As he reached the appointed meeting place the young man grinned lightly at Naoko, who was already waiting next to Ibiki-sensei.

Ibiki looked formidable, as usual, as he tapped his foot impatiently. They waited a few more minutes until Ibiki vanished in a puff of smoke. Blinking and turning to look at Naoko, Ranma was treated with an embarrassed shrug. "Hikari always needs help to pack..." Naoko muttered, embarrassed for her friend.

Ranma sat down to wait.

* * *

"Lee!" bellowed a voice from behind; turning around Lee came face to face with Tenten, bouncy excited eager looking Tenten. "I need you to teach me more Taijutsu!" Tenten looked very eager indeed, for a moment Lee looked at her silently in contemplation then his mouth broke out into a wide toothy smile.

"Yatta!" screeched the younger green beast with a far too wide smile. "We can start today with some light work and then you can follow my super special youth recovery training schedule!" Lee's eyes were on fire as he clenched his fist and grinned in a manner disturbingly similar (In Tenten's opinion) to a crocodile eyeing its next meal.

Tenten sweat dropped, for some totally unknown and illogical reason this wasn't what she had expected (The whole doing a recovery program, not the posing and stuff). Although on a moment's reflection, Lee's recovery training was probably pretty harsh for someone like her. Not that Tenten had ever seen Lee do something that she could handle as her training while he was fit… so perhaps this wouldn't be too over the top.

Lee's next words removed _that_ silly notion from her head.

* * *

For a moment he was irritated, but the view made up for it in less than a few seconds. Ranma tried not to smirk, or to make any stupid comments. But Naoko's stifled giggling behind him and the sight of Hikari being dragged along by Ibiki's very firm grip on her shoulder was almost too much. Finally catching sight of Ibiki's scowl, Ranma's levity died a horribly painful death – If Ibiki could kill with a glare…

"We're leaving Ranma, you're at the rear Naoko, Hikari take left and right and I'll be point." Snarled the Jounin as he almost tossed Hikari into place, "Don't forget to act casual." Finished Ibiki with an irritated grumble causing Ranma to nod appreciatively, there had been a lot of attacks that he and his father Genma had been able to turn the tables on by pretending to be helpless for a short while.

They moved quietly out the gates of Konoha, for Ranma this was a first since he had arrived in the forest. The trees looked like many others Ranma had seen in his travel, there was nothing markedly different to tell Ranma he was really in another world and no matter how far he travelled he would never get back to Japan. Ranma experienced another moment of doubt before straightening to look over his shoulder for a moment. The gates were still in view, barely, but Ibiki was picking up the pace and they were soon bounding through the trees leaving little scuff marks behind.

"You can speak; we're not likely to get ambushed yet." Ibiki said after a few minutes of silence.

"Ibiki-Sensei, should we worry about leaving tracks?" Naoko asked immediately. Ibiki shrugged as if it didn't matter so Naoko continued. "Well... What do we know about the 'bloody hands,' Ibiki-sensei?"

Ibiki glanced back. "Group of 10 to 15 bandits, comprised of two genin level ninja, one chuunin level, rest are common thugs. We will ambush a raiding party, allow one of them to escape and then follow them back to their hideout where we will kill them all."

Ranma's toes dug into the soft earth, the unexpected friction catching his foot and causing him to stumble slightly. The unexpected sound of Ranma's next step caused the other three people to glance at him obliquely. "We have to kill them all?" queried the boy, his tone not quite filled with his normal assurance.

Ibiki looked at the boy quietly, the expression on Ranma's face didn't show much, but the normally iron-clad control of his body was relaxed slightly. The boys stride hadn't slowed much, and it had a hopeful aspect to it, but it was also resigned. Ranma's shoulders weren't exactly drooping, but neither were they as straight as normal. "Ranma, we are Ninja of Konoha, Konoha's interests are ours. One of Konoha's interests is insuring that the people of our nation are safe. It's our responsibility. If we took a stance that was less harsh than our neighbouring nations, their bandits would leave there for here"

Ranma looked sour, but his posture was filled with grim determination. "It's more than pride in having a better nation. It's our honour."

Ibiki nodded, Naoko looked a little doubtful but Hikari's steps were firm and purposeful. Ibiki decided to continue with a briefing. "The two ex-genin are from Mist and Leaf. The ex-Chuunin is from Rock. The rest of the bandits use more or less standard weapons, nothing really of interest really."

Ranma frowned as he waited for more information but none came. "What makes the ninja's weapons so different from the rest?" asked the pigtailed boy finally.

Hikari grinned, finally, something she could answer. "Rock Chuunin are more likely to use blunt weapons. Hammers, staves, iron fists and other weapons of a similar style. The Mist use more fluid weapons, senbon, daggers and whips and so on."

As Hikari took a breath Naoko stepped in, determined not to let her team-mate get all the glory. "Also, the Leaf Ninja is not of any clan in particular. They will most likely use only a kunai or at most a sword. The leaf as a whole places little emphasis on weapons other than kunai, this means that due to the clans teaching their own personal weapon styles to family or friends, Konoha's teams are much more varied in weapon styles and combat methods than any other hidden village."

Ibiki coughed quietly and interrupted Naoko's glorifying of their village. "That's not quite true. Most of Konoha is very efficient at barehanded fighting, we hold the belief that your body is one weapon that is harder to take away than any other. But due to this, many of our ninja develop arrogance towards most weapons. The vast majority of our Ninja are barehanded fighters or nearly so, relying mostly on kunai when the enemy draws a weapon."

Ranma nodded, that made sense. Ebisu had shown him proper use for Kunai, both as a throwing weapon and a handheld combat equalizer. He hadn't shown him how to use it against unarmed people. Ranma had figured out a few ways anyway, claws or some other similar method. "That's not too different from Anything Goes. While Pops trained me in all of that stuff, I was discouraged from carrying around weapons I liked to use." Ibiki shrugged and broke into a quick jog. Evidently the briefing was over.

* * *

Crouching down, Naruto looked quietly at his teacher, Jiraiya, despite what many would think, Naruto did have a lot of respect for the Toad Sannin. Jiraiya looked back at Naruto sternly before speaking. "You know, if you do this… it will mean it will take longer to become Hokage." Said the white haired man seriously.

Naruto chuckled. "I don't think so!" Naruto nodded quickly to re-affirm his point.

"Come on Naruto." Jiraiya started impatiently. "If you're going to take time to teach someone, it's going to cut into your training time and that will make it longer for you to get strong enough to be Hokage." The sannin shrugged, feeling his point was made and stood up from his crouch.

Naruto frowned and grabbed ero-sennin's shirt to pull him down again. "No way!" growled the fox-child. "I'm going to teach her, and then everyone who thinks she's amazing is gonna think I'm amazing too cause I taught her and that's going to make being Hokage easier!" Naruto waved his fist. "And anyone who thinks she isn't amazing is going to be kicked in the ass until they do!"

Jiraiya chuckled loudly, very loudly. In fact, he chuckled just loudly enough that it caught the attention of a few people who were enjoying themselves. Deciding that they didn't like the sound of that chuckling they investigated and found two people crouching down behind a wooden fence.

Naturally, as this wooden fence was the wooden fence around a bathhouse, this wasn't seen as a welcome place for two people to be crouching and chuckling. A furore ensued and the two people ran away very quickly, with thrown scrubs, soap and other things flying after them.

* * *

Chouji was happier than a pig in mud. Not that the still-recovering boy knew why pigs were supposed to be happy when covered in mud. But disregarding that, he was still happy. Chouji was very happy because he had food, real good food that was sizzling in front of him right now. Clicking his chopsticks together in a vain encouragement for the meat to cook just a little bit faster Chouji absently ate some of the rice in front of him as he regarded his team-mates and teacher.

"I've been talking with our parents." Ino spoke up, shifting Chouji's attention from the observation of exactly who would dare to touch Chouji's food first to the girl seated opposite him.

"Our?" asked the Akimichi. Whose last name was quite different from Yamanake, well, it was last time he checked anyway.

"Yes, Ours." Ino repeated with a frown. "As we all know our parents have been a team for a very long time. From when they were Genin, while they were Chuunin and they still frequently team up on missions." Chouji nodded, this was old news but why bring it up now? "I've asked about techniques that require two or three of us to cooperate. And by us I mean people with our bloodlines or techniques."

Shikamaru rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "How many techniques are there that they'll let us learn now?"

Ino nodded, pleased at his deduction. "We've gotten six or so techniques. The Yamanaka techniques were a sort of group consciousness thing where we all know what everyone else is doing and a technique that lets you control four things at a time, although if you perform this technique on four people, you can only control one limb from each."

Chouji took the cooking meat and ate it all, he waved over the waitress who smiled coyly and gave him another plate of raw meat, which was promptly placed on the grill.

"Interesting techniques, I can see that helping out in combat and spying." Murmured Shikamaru quietly, "What were the other techniques?"

"The descriptions of yours, was allowing you to control our shadows like you would yours when the group-mind is on and also the ability to use the shadows to carry solid objects." Ino smirked as Shikamaru's eyes widened in surprise.

Asuma's indrawn breath whistled between his teeth. "those could be very powerful techniques Shikamaru."

Shikamaru nodded. "I'll be able to use explosive notes or Kunai from my team-mates to attack from any direction, plant traps remotely..." the lazy chuunin smiled. "Less running around for me."

Asuma laughed as Ino glared at the boy. "I hope not!" she said with a growl, causing Shikamaru to ward her off with open palms. Ino sniffed haughtily and continued. "The Akimichi techniques are really amazing; I've totally changed my opinion of your techniques Chouji!"

The aforementioned boy finished his next bit of meat and looked curiously at Ino. "You haven't told me what they were yet…"

Ino blushed. "Oops" chuckling to herself she continued on. "Well, one of them is how to make a seal that stores energy in someone else, and the second is to access it either for you or for them to use. It sounds really cool."

Chouji nodded. "Dad told me about that once, it got our parents out of a really tight scrape in mist country." Chouji's father had a scar from the top to the bottom of his thigh from that mission.

Shikamaru nodded. "These are really interesting techniques. But you said six or so..."

Ino nodded. "It's not really a technique, but I've gotten scrolls from all our parents on good strategy and tactics for these techniques." Ino shrugged. "They also said we're not allowed to try any of the techniques alone until we've got it perfect as a group. I don't know why though."

Chouji just shrugged. "So we're used to doing them correctly I guess." Ino and Shikamaru nodded almost identically.

"Hey, is that Kurenai-sensei?" asked Ino suddenly.

* * *

The early morning light shone down on a group of travellers, two bodyguards accompanying a rich young brunette and her servant who was loaded down with supplies, as they walked along occasional beams of sunlight would reflect off the bodyguards carelessly sheathed swords and the brown hair girls intricately braided hair. The two guards shuffled along slightly in front and to the sides of the woman as they walked, careless to a rear attack.

The servant groaned quietly, not wanting to bring down her mistresses wrath. "Why do I have to carry all this junk?" The black haired servant whimpered, her lack of attention kicking up a little bit of dust as she tripped and almost fell.

"You had better not drop anything back there." Barked the brunette suddenly, her high pitched voice echoing in the early forest air. "If any of my dresses get too dusty you'll be in trouble!"

The servant sighed and trotted forward to catch up to the finely dressed woman. "Sorry Mistress, nothing has been dropped or sullied Mistress."

The brunette looked at her servant with a single raised eyebrow. "You should hope not." She aid before sniffing daintily and walking onwards, ignoring the servants half hearted glare as they resumed their trek through the forest.

* * *

Naruto smirked at Hinata, who smiled tentatively back. "A..are you okay Naruto-Kun?" asked the white eyed girl timidly. "That looks like it hurts…"

Naruto laughed as he stood up again. "Nah, Nah, Hinata-Chan." Brushing himself off the whisker adorned boy hid his flinch as best he was able. "I'm fine, see!"

Hinata reproachfully at him and Naruto laughed nervously, his hand sneaking up to the back of his head. "Naruto-kun, were you here all night?" asked the girl firmly.

The unexpected question caused Naruto to look around, the training area was covered in debris, two dummies were completely destroyed and there was dozens of kunai and shuriken covering the six dew covered targets at one side. All in all, it would be difficult to refute Hinata's question, deciding to own up Naruto looked at her and nodded quietly.

Hinata frowned a little and breathed in deeply before looking at the blond haired boy as firmly as she was able. "We should go have breakfast before you do anything else." Naruto's face lit up like the sun and he grinned wildly, but ala, Hinata had other plans. "There is a breakfast diner I've been meaning to go to." Naruto's face fell a little; no longer blindingly bright but still, the glow in his eyes was sweet to Hinata. "Come on Naruto-Kun."

It was after they had sat down and ordered some traditional breakfast foods that Hinata realised she had taken Naruto on a date and they were having quite a good time. Of course, as soon as that realization hit her she couldn't say another word through her blush.

Poor Naruto would be torn later, thinking that it was his fault for her sudden silence.

* * *

Two men looked at each other and nodded almost simultaneously. One of them flicked his fingers into a certain pattern, thirty metres behind them a man saw the pattern and gave quick thumbs up to the scouts before yanking a thin cord that released a bird from its cage. Twelve hundred metres ahead of the two scouts and the signaller was a man concealed in the upper branches of a tree, this man saw a bird fly towards him and land where it had been taught. Smiling, the man took the bird and placed it in a cage carefully before running down the side of the tree as easily as one would run along the flattest ground.

Eighteen other men around the base of the tree launched themselves into action, readying weapons and moving out the kilometre walk to the road.

Within ten minutes the men were arrayed around and above the road. Two steep sides meant that it would be easy for the men to charge down and attack the targets while limiting a counter-attack, not to mention that if any of the targets had bows they'd have a harder time attacking the bandits.

The bandits waited, patiently or not, some concealed close to the road in carefully prepared ditches or further back where they could launch a ranged attack.

The targets entered the small valley, two rough looking men with sheathed swords and two women, one obviously a servant to the other. The two men were walking to the sides of the woman with the servant girl lagging behind slightly.

Four men stood in the centre of the road, covering the entire path between them. All had their swords drawn and held in various lazy positions. The two bodyguards stopped and half-drew their swords. The noblewoman looked contemptuously at the brigands before staring them in the eye. "Can I help you?" she asked with condescension dripping from her tone.

Two of the bandits looked at each other and chuckled before obviously leering at the noblewoman. The third stood impassively while the fourth stepped forward and spoke. "You'll leave everything but the clothes on your back and go. Or you'll die here." The fourth bandit waved lazily and two arrows thudded into the dirt between the two groups, each arrow having arrived from a different side of the valley.

The two bodyguards sword slid further out of their sheathes, they leaned forward as if determined to strike out and the fourth of the bandits frowned.

"Your bodies will be pincushions if you don't obey." He conveniently left out the fact that he'd be killing the targets anyway, he just didn't want the loot damaged if it could be avoided.

One of the two body guards, the taller man wearing a bandanna to cover his head signalled behind his back before leaping forward, covering the distance between the two groups in a heartbeat and disembowelling one of bandits before the others could move. The second bodyguard jumped backwards, picked up the noblewoman and almost tossed her to the side of a boulder. Half a dozen arrows landed where those two had been.

The servant squealed and ducked for cover only to find there were bandits literally crawling out of the ground around them.

The first guard had killed three of the first four original bandits but was too busy dodging arrows to finish the fourth. The second bodyguard was slamming the hilt of his sword into the temple of one of the formerly concealed bandits, the servant was holding a mid-sized knife in front of her as she took a position to guard the noblewoman, who was cowering in terror next to a large boulder.

A mask covered man wearing a slashed forehead protector of the Rock village melted out of the rock behind the noblewoman and went to cut her throat, only to be killed by a kunai entering his eye socket. The noblewoman cursed as the dead ninja pulled down her disguise revealing the utilitarian clothing underneath, the servant shrugged and smirked. "Guess no more servitude for me." before launching herself and the nearest brigand and cutting his throat without even slowing. The noblewoman shrugged and performed a perfect chop to the throat of a bandit trying to sneak up on her, crushing his throat and leaving him to gag to death.

Meanwhile the Ranma noticed the girls giving up on the disguise and did the same by throwing a half dozen kunai at three oncoming attacks, killing them near instantly. His mind shuddered back for a moment but firmed as the next person attacked and was taken out in a moment. Looking around he frowned when he found there was no one left. Only the archers who had thought not to stick around.

"Ranma, Naoko, go to the South and find out what happened to those archers, signal if you need help. Hikari, come with me to get the ones at the north." Barked Ibiki as he touched down onto the ground and launched into the nearest foliage. Ranma literally jumped on the spot and dashed towards the eastern side of the valley where Naoko was already ascending. Catching up to her by the time they reached the top the two ninja's found the evidence they were looking for and leapt up into the trees to follow their prey, it took nearly a minute of chasing before they found two fleeing archers and killed them without warning. Ranma started to feel quite sick in the stomach.

Naoko recovered the kunai the duo had used and pocketed Ranma's after cleaning them both. Ranma didn't look like he particularly wanted that throwing dagger back. Leaping up to the tree Naoko waited a moment in silence before Ranma broke his gaze away from the two corpses and followed her back to the site of the ambush. There they met Hikari and Ibiki, who had already dealt with their targets and returned. Ibiki waved them over and they stood among the death for a moment in abject silence, the cruel reality bearing down on them.

Ibiki didn't take long to get sick of the shock on his gennin's faces. "There's still a few missing, only two missing nin were killed here, a rock and a leaf." He left out the fact that they'd dispatched sixteen people by his count, and by Hikari's report on the rock nin she had killed he doubted that it was really a chuunin. "The only escapee I saw has been tagged. It's time to follow them home boy and girls." Naoko looked at him for a moment and nodded, Hikari not far behind. Ranma however took a little while longer before nodding and his expression firming to resolve.

The four ninja vanished into clouds of smoke as they leapt into pursuit of their rabbit.

* * *

A man stumbled into camp tree surrounded camp, his eyes widened in abject terror brought on from seeing so many people killed in front of him. One of the few men remaining blew on a small horn, calling the rest of the people to the area. Within moments the man had explained what happened as best he could, confusion from the slaughter revealing that he had only seen the two bodyguards in action. The leader, a Ninja formerly of the Mist drew a katana and calmed his men easily, ordering them to take to ranged weapons he set them up around the camp and placed himself and two subordinates in the centre as bait.

* * *

Ibiki was point man, Ranma following five metres behind with Naoko and Hikari two metres to the sides of the two men. In this diamond formation the group travelled speedily through the trees towards the tag that Ibiki was chasing. As the tag slowed to a stop about a hundred metres ahead of them the party slowed and took a more offensive stance, Naoko and Hikari moving up to beside Ibiki and Ranma closing the gap by a metre. Hand signals were exchanged and the formation widened.

Naoko glanced across the twenty odd meters separating her and Hikari. Ibiki had concealed himself in the trees above them and Ranma was somewhere to her rear. In front of her lay the camp, it was quite obvious it was a trap but there wasn't much choice but to spring it. The enemy ninja in the centre of the camp was looking in their direction quite intently, and Naoko figured it was known they were there.

Hikari frowned, enter the trap or go around and pick off as many as possible before attacking head on. Looking over to Naoko she found the decision had been made. Her team-mate was withdrawing slowly on hands and knees. Hikari nodded and followed her lead, pulling back a dozen meters to where she was met by Ranma and Ibiki. Naoko joined them a moment later.

"Do any of you have a plan?" asked Ibiki idly.

Naoko nodded. "We split up, go around the sides of the camp and annihilate all those in our way, then come back and attack the camp." Ibiki shrugged as Naoko continued. "That way least amount of people escape and we can attack from all sides."

Ranma frowned and shook his head. "No, if we split up we become too vulnerable, all four of us should just go around one side and clean it out, then head into the centre, we can all cover each other that way."

Ibiki shook his head. "Not quite. I'll handle one side, you three will take the other. Don't get distracted, just get the job done. Keep a close watch on each other and as soon as the covers blown, everyone head to the camp and wipe it out." The special Jounin paused. "See if you can keep property damage low."

The team paused for a moment until Ibiki irritably waved them off and leapt away. The trio followed his lead, leaving for their own work, Naoko and Hikari taking to the trees while Ranma travelled along the ground. It didn't take long to find the first of the would be ambushers, Naoko took care of him with a kunai to the back of the skull, Ranma pulled it out and tossed it back up to her. A thin trail of blood spun off the blade.

The second and third kills were quick and quiet, Hikari taking them both unawares. The fourth and final kill was performed by Ranma who snuck up behind the archer and pushed a senbon into the back of the man's chest, going through his heart and killing him in a moment that seemed to last forever for the far too young Ranma Saotome.

Hikari and Naoko turned their eyes from the kill and stealthily moved towards the camp to finish the mission. Ranma following them without hesitation.

* * *

Authors Note: I apologize for the extreme lateness of this chapter. One year and two months late to be precise. Omfg. 


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